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urban as well as rural ground, difficult or congenial. And I’m specifically referring to the ground of paths, to ground altered by humans in general, because ground in the abstract, the ground of the world, speaks different, near-incomprehensible languages. Walking is, in part, a kind of superficial archaeology, which I find greatly instructive and somehow moving, because it considers evidence that’s humble, irrelevant, even random—the exact opposite of a scientific investigation. It’s evidence that, because of its unimportance and its secondary nature, restores a way of inhabiting time: one is an eyewitness to the anonymous, to what history can’t classify, and simultaneously witness to what will survive with some difficulty. And for that reason, when I walk on paths I’ve been inclined to leave behind faint, minimal marks—the proverbial initials or the name drawn in the dirt with a stick, ephemera that vanish quickly from the ground or from walls, like sodden footsteps on a rainy day or shoe prints. Not because I believe someone will decipher them in my wake, but because the action implies an innate impulse, one can only hope to leave fleeting traces. Similarly, I regard the random things that make up the path as simple and moving: the blending of varied materials, the wear and tear of age, the former uses, etc., that are at times revealed and which transport me to the lethargic scale of banal discoveries, even predictable at times, yet transcendent because they evoke the secondariness I just mentioned. In fact, one of my greatest weaknesses are those paths that are sometimes traced onto sidewalks and public stairways, the result of countless steps of people in a given place, like an invisible mechanism.
    The shaded path I was following would soon yield me its first surprise, something like a second aid in forgetting all about the city I’d left behind me a few meters back. The path opened onto a fairly large clearing, roughly fifty meters wide, where there was a labyrinth (the name I prefer to give it) of greenery, or a circular garden, formed by dwarf hedges, barely knee-high, that delineated narrow, sinuous paths and the odd allée, itself interspersed with flowering shrubs, probably rose bushes, proportionally spaced. Across from me, on the path that encircled the garden, were two bougainvilleas near-bursting with vivid purple blooms. I remember it because their brilliant color stood out from the light green of the stand of trees and the dark green of the hedges. The garden also contained several main paths with a few granite benches, very low to the ground, where visitors could presumably rest.
    When I emerged from the darkened path, the light was so dazzling I had to squint. At first the garden seemed deserted, and the silence, because it related to an open space, suggested an absence, I could say an emptiness, or rather, time entirely undefined. Gradually the idea took hold of me to avoid encountering anyone, a thought that occurs to me more and more frequently of late. I stood still and looked at the garden; I wanted to familiarize myself with it, to enjoy the perspective, I don’t know, to enjoy the experience of one of those suspended moments associated with picturesque landscapes, apparently definitive in their composition, or at least conclusive because of the idea of harmony, no matter natural or artificial, that they meant to convey; so I found myself standing attentive and motionless to one side of the labyrinth, when all of a sudden something happened: a few meters away from me a shadow materialized that I hadn’t noticed until that moment. Some thing or being was hiding in one of the central walks; I couldn’t see it clearly at all because of the glaring light, but also because the bench where “that something” was installed was so close to the ground that even the dwarf hedges blocked my view. At first I thought it was a parcel, or more precisely a bundle of forgotten clothes, or some