Perfection

by Vincenzo Latronico

They will show their friends photos of the house, the surrounding landscape, the sea just a stone’s throw away, and they will sense in the tone of their friends’ promises to come and visit that they actually mean it, unlike with Sicily. They will take what they will claim will be their last ever MDMA, really believing it. Then they will finally leave, excited and emotional, sad to be closing one chapter of their lives but eager to start another. They will take a photo of themselves in the glass doors of Schönefeld’s departures terminal, trying to replicate their pose and expressions from all those years before. During the flight they will hold their smartphones up to study the two photos side by side, zooming in to look at the wrinkles and shadows on their faces, and finding there the years passed: two kids leaving, two adults returning.