If on a winter’s night – I am walking home, my legs tired and heavy, my head sunk low; I hear footsteps behind me, sinking into the ground, moving as slowly as I am moving. I turn and look straight into your face, the moonbeams lighting it up gradually. You are clothed in a harsh black coat, military boots, and a thick fur cap imperfectly tuned to the body. “I recognize you! A friend from the past!” Yes, I know you too - a friend from the past, someone forgotten, but never completely kept out of sight. We laugh because it is terribly strange and absurd that we should meet again, a thousand miles from where we started, half the universe passed, and our age doubled. We meet again on a lonely winter night, where the leaves have fallen and there is no sign of hope except when we are buried under the covers. “I have been waiting for you,” you say, “I have been following the shadows of memory and here I found you.” Our palms meet in symmetry. We are back to being ten and free, nervous and excitable. The ice beneath the feet melts, and if on a winter’s night a traveler should pass us by, he would nod his head and borrow this knowledge for his next tale.

We sigh, we dream, but only because as the clock strikes one, the air is still and the excesses of a book about love affects.

(italics from Italo Calvino, if on a winter's night a traveler)