In Sweden, in Japan, in Holland, could there be a young woman identical to Clarice Lispector? A girl identical to Virginia Woolf on the streets of Palermo in Buenos Aires, or a young Jorge Luis Borges riding the tube in London? A teenager on a skateboard, listening to reggae, who’s the spitting image of Ibsen?

Probably.

I ran into your friend Marcos. We talked about you, and about your dad and Marina. He told me your mum used to take you and Marina for bike rides in the park when you were children. I told him I’ve given up on counting the days, since they’re all the same. Marcos said: ‘It’s good for Jonás to have you in his life. He’s a gentleman, he never tells me the details of your relationship, but even though he’s away, I can tell you he’s a better person now. It’s much better that you’re with him than that you’re not. I hope you stay together.’

Maybe there isn’t another twenty-four-year-old Proust with a black eye in a bar. Maybe there isn’t another Oscar Wilde in the supermarket queue. Maybe there isn’t another Fernando Pessoa eating a slice of orange dusted with chilli, which the guy under the pink awning in the market offers him on the tip of a knife. But please let there be a teenager on a skateboard, listening to reggae, who’s the spitting image of Ibsen.

In primary school, a teacher read us a story by Oscar Wilde. I read it again as soon as I got home. It was a story about a giant and it captivated me. And that night, something began. For my fourteenth birthday, my uncle, the husband of my aunt Eva, posted me a book of Fernando Pessoa’s poems. Reading the first pages of the book, I forgot all about my party. My granddad asked me to come down for the cake. Later that night, in my bedroom with the light on, reading the book again, something began. So much has happened since I read those books for the first time. I disagree with so many of the things I’ve done and said since then, but some books are like dots that form a line. Maybe it’s to do with books and doors being the same shape. Proust opened one for me when I was seventeen. A big door, I know. And something else happened that was equally big. At that age I discovered reggae and hip hop. It was that combination, and my skateboarding boyfriend, that showed me the cosmos.

It’s time to say it: I love my slippers. Especially on a Friday night, like now. I think you can do everything in slippers: open doors, discover planets, travel the Milky Way. An armchair and slippers are just right for a cosmic voyage.