Perfection

by Vincenzo Latronico

And among those people—who never changed, who were content to hang out in the same sets they belonged to at school—Anna and Tom weren’t free to be themselves, or rather, they weren’t free to reinvent themselves.

In the future, people would be publicly shamed for any minor slip-up. In the future, being publicly shamed would be so common it would stop being an effective deterrent.

The Americans were not the least surprised to turn up in a foreign capital and find a readymade community of people there to welcome them and discuss their country’s politics in their language.

they could sense the possibility of being excited by life again, a little like the feeling of sleep emerging through the darkness of insomnia.