In the earliest nightmare I can remember, my mother’s voice disappeared. It was fading, becoming impossible to hear. I was running through the forest, the supermarket or the park. The plot doesn’t matter, the point is her voice was gone by the end. And what scale is that on, compared to a daughter who dies before her father?

Ernesto’s parents lost a child before he was born, a cot death. In one of the most profound and beautiful conversations I had with his father after dinner, he said: ‘A natural death, but if that’s nature, then the cruelty of it really makes you think. How do you explain a child dying first? You never get over it. It’s the worst possible tragedy and it shouldn’t happen to anyone.’

Have we got used to cruelty?

Changes in the cabinet, a change of president and the numbers don’t change. I wonder what would happen if each parent, each child, each person who’s lost someone in the last few years picked up the microphone to talk about their loss, more or less like Ernesto’s dad did at the table or like in the early hours of the morning when Jonás told me the details of his mother’s death. Every single one of those stories out loud.

What are we doing?

Come on out of the whale’s belly now, you can’t escape. Come away with me.