I saw the dwarf from my block at the supermarket. He was wearing a navy-blue three-piece suit and holding hands with his daughter, a little girl. They were in the queue next to mine, the queue for fifteen items or fewer. He had a litre of milk in one hand, and his other hand was holding the girl’s. She was wearing pink pyjamas, a red sweater and white shoes. I remembered something, and it struck me that a mystery was being solved. One time when we had an argument, before you went away, I saw the dwarf in the street with a cane. I felt like him, like I needed a cane myself. I don’t know why I thought he was single, but in fact the dwarf on the block has a beautiful diminutive daughter who goes shopping with him in pyjamas. The girl asked him to buy her a chocolate, and he did, affectionately, letting go of her hand to pick up a chocolate bunny rabbit wrapped in gold foil. I felt like I was seeing something I hadn’t known about in that action, a side I hadn’t imagined, a scene that seemed to ground him in the here and now. The elegant, solemn man, who looks like he’s from another era, the man who some time ago smiled at me in the street with an almost novelistic air about him, was the same man who was passing a chocolate bunny rabbit to his daughter.

The dwarf’s navy-blue suit, the same colour as the sweater I had in my plastic pencil sharpener days. A sweater printed with the face of an English soldier, the classic helmet covering more than half of his face, leaving only his mouth in view. My father at the wheel of the beige Beetle. The white, red and yellow lights in the streets. Sharp pinpricks of colour in the sky, stripes of light flashing past at speed. The music he hummed, as if singing would expose him too much. I bought a chocolate bunny rabbit for my father.

The health of my uncle, my father’s brother, is declining rapidly. He told me when I called just now to invite him for dinner.

Jonás usually wears plain cotton T-shirts and shirts. His T-shirts are navy blue, white and grey, and some are stripy. Since he left, I’ve been using his T-shirts as pyjamas. Although we’re more or less the same size, my clothes don’t fit him. And I’ve been waiting so long to take yours off you, Jonás. I wish we could have one of those Saturdays of getting up at one p.m., eating in the Japanese restaurant then going back home again. Oh, the smell of the bed on a Saturday evening.

I have three words, three tiny stones to suck: come back, Jonás.