The next time, she was better equipped. She bought a used camping mat and a light blanket to protect her from the cool of the early morning and from any passing low-lifes, who, if she were well covered, would take her for a panhandler and not rob her. And her skinny, angular body was no temptation; with that blanket over her she was unlikely to arouse sexual desire. She could spend the night near the river or in a park, places she guessed would be more comfortable and allow for deeper sleep, for a more complete conquest of her dreams. She hadn’t counted on the swarms of mosquitos on the riverbank that buzzed around her ears the whole night, even when she’d pulled the blanket over her head. That riot of winged creatures seeking her blood prevented her from resting. She returned to the hotel covered in bites; the one on her eyelid swelled up like a football until a chambermaid applied some cream from the first-aid box. She changed her mind about sleeping in parks or by the river after that, and took refuge beneath a newly constructed bridge over an esplanade that had formerly been a shantytown. The beautiful, white bridge connected the railway station with the already famous modern art gallery that was to be opened in six months, and the esplanade was only used by kids from the adjoining buildings, who played ball games or lay on their backs watching the planes pass overhead. But there was also a grand plan for the redevelopment of the area, or that’s what people said. It took her over an hour to get there, and when she was under one of the pilings of the bridge, with the strong smell of piss, she felt that she had too much city at her back. The gigantic concrete circle of the esplanade surrounded by apartment buildings reminded her of her room at the hotel: it was a state of exception, a territory that was tearing itself off from any rational space. She dreaded to think what might happen in that huge expanse. Would she be invaded by the dreams of thousands of people? Would that multitude in her head shatter her? Her first supposition was correct. Having moved away from the pilings and the smell of piss, she did receive simultaneous dream fragments, which she watched as if she possessed the gift of ubiquity. Although she didn’t wake in thousands of pieces, she noted that her mind now knew much more than she did: she was only able to recall scraps of that knowledge. In some part of her, all those dreams were still reproducing themselves. Instead of being destroyed by this invasion, she felt calm, and had the sense that the esplanade was no larger than her home in Huesca. She remembered a poem in which a crowd of people go out into the street. The time had come for action, for going to work, for dressing for mourning. She could only recall a snatch of it: