When the gunfire ended, officer Marco Rossi was the only one still standing. The smell of gunpowder mixed itself with the heavy rain crashing upon him. His patrol had stopped a car that was violating the curfew. When they approached it, the three men inside the car opened fire. Marco was uninjured, but the two officers that were with him were both killed. Waiting for reinforcements and the ambulances, he decided to inspect the dead men inside the car. Under one of the seats he found a large block of Golod, the flesh-consuming heroin that was becoming popular. Marco had no idea why people were so stupid. The military government had legalized all sorts of drugs, except for those that were considered truly dangerous, but most people wanted more, more excitement, more rush, more ecstasy. Checking the bodies of the men, he found their wallets and took names and addresses. It was in that moment that he noticed a digitized picture that belonged to one of the dead men. It was in poor condition, but the image was still stunning. It showed four people, smiling and waving at the camera. Two of them were the dead men in the car, another one was a young woman with short black hair. She was hugging the arm of another man. And that man was himself. Marco looked at the picture, trying to make sense of it; he felt his hand shaking. He was the man in the picture. He saw his reflection in the mirror every morning, and the face of that man was his own.

His hand shook, his mind fell in disarray. What was the meaning of that image held by his fingers? He searched within his mind for the faces the picture was showing him, but nothing came. They were strangers to him. And yet they were close to the man in the picture. The man who looked just like him. His throat went dry and he felt the air missing from his lungs. He wanted to remove his helmet to breathe and let the rain wash away his confusion, like mud sliding away from his skin. Slowly, he tried to regain his composure. He needed to calm down. He observed the picture once more and attempted to discern any kind of difference between him and the man. Nothing. They were like mirror images of each other. Was that man himself? Or a lost twin brother? And where was he now?

Hearing the sirens coming to the crime scene, Marco hid the picture inside his black leather trench coat and thought about what to do next.

*     *     *
The three men were registered as independent criminals, not tied to any mafia clan currently existing. In over forty years of war on crime the mafia clans had lost much of their strength, allowing small gangs to fill the void. The military government existed to prevent Italy from sliding into chaos and restore law and order at any cost, including human lives. This decision made Italy a pariah on the international stage, creating more problems than it solved. People kept leaving every day, and those who stayed behind were at constant risk of being caught up in the conflict between the military government and the massive criminal organization who controlled large swaths of territory. Marco’s family was killed during a shootout and killed by criminals; that was the reason he had chosen to enlist in the army and patrol the street. To keep other families safe.

So why was his picture in the wallet of a criminal? And who was the woman with him? She was the only clue he had. The results from the other men were of no use to him. He needed someone alive. He needed that woman.

Searching the central archive, he discovered her name and address through the face recognition software. He clad himself in his service uniform, a black trench coat for the constant rain, red stripes on the sides, and a protective helmet with a reinforced face shield mirror. On the top of the helmet there was integrated the Carabinieri’s hat, with the symbol of the moving flame in front of it. After obtaining permission for a lone patrol, an unusual request, he reached the woman’s house. She lived in a small apartment complex on the third floor. While climbing up the stairs, he realized that maybe it was a mistake. That he should have just torn up that picture, still inside in his pocket, and gone back to HQ, doing his job. But a strange pull drove him towards that door and made him ring the old bell; it was too late to go back now. The mystery of the man in the picture had to be solved. For all his life, since he could remember, Marco had followed orders, suppressing his desires and thoughts. For once he wanted to do something for himself. A selfish act, but people are selfish in the end. That was how he justified his actions.

After a few seconds the door opened and the young woman from the picture appeared before him. She looked at him with disdain, her distorted face reflected on his mirrored face shield.

"Good afternoon madam," he said. The voice modulator inside his helmet distorted his voice, making him sound like an unemotional machine. "Are you Lucrezia Baldi?"

"Yes."

"May I come in? I have questions regarding a certain incident."

"Am I in trouble?"

"No."

Reluctantly, she let him inside. The apartment was small; in a few steps they were inside the kitchen. Small pieces of computer paper acted as a television screen, showing a police drama. Sitting down, she lit a cigarette. Marco took out the picture he was carrying and showed it to her.

"Do you recognize this man?"

Squinting her eyes, she leaned forward. She stood up, her eyes betraying her rage.

"Is this a joke?" she almost screamed. "You don’t know who he is? Are you messing with me? Think I’m afraid of you?"

"Calm down please. Tell me his name."

"That’s Claudio. Claudio Pagliari. You people arrested him last year. What? You don’t talk to each other?"

"Claudio," he whispered the name. His name, maybe.

"Last year you people came here and took him away. He robbed a bank. So what? There are no jobs, no money, no nothing. What are we supposed to do? Starve? I’m lucky to have a job, but most people don’t. Are you planning to arrest all of them?" she stopped for a few seconds, recognizing the picture he was holding.

"How come you have that picture? That belongs to ..."

"I’m sorry to inform you that the owner of this picture has been killed. The same happened to the other man. I’m very sorry."

Lucrezia looked away, biting her thumb and closing her eyes. He saw her struggle to fight back the tears, to not show any weakness in front of him, someone she detested.

"Get out," she managed to say.

"One last thing."

"I’m not going to answer any more questions."

"I just want to know, what kind of man was Claudio? And what kind of relationship did he have with the men in the picture?"

Looking at the man in black with teary eyes, she felt her anger being replaced by surprise. Something within her made her speak, holding nothing back.

"Claudio was kind, and strong. She once told that me even if he had other girls, I was the only one he really cared for. He told me that those others love came and went, but our love was here to stay," she said, her cigarette slowly dying between her fingers. "The two men were his buddies, Luca and Andrea. They knew each other since they were kids. Did everything together. Including robbing banks." She put out her cigarette on the cheap ashtray. "Now leave."

Marco nodded and said his goodbyes to the young woman. She did not reply and slammed the door behind his back. He thought he heard her sobbing.

As he descended the staircase he felt his head spinning. Why was he identical to Claudio? Was he Claudio? If that was the case, it meant that he did shoot down two people who used to be his friends. The idea sickened him, his stomach almost turning inside out. He staggered and put his hand on the wall, feeling bile rising from his esophagus. He removed his helmet and covered his mouth. Coughing, he felt his eyes watering from the sensation and the thoughts that were accumulating in his mind. Once again he attempted to search in his memories for the two men he had seen die in front of his eyes. It proved pointless. A dark wall was blocking him, and no matter how much he attempted to tear it down, the wall would not crack. He felt powerless and alone, trapped in a strange cage made not of material elements, but of mind webs that would not let him go where he desired.

He left the condo and walked back to the station, hoping to find new information about Claudio, and himself.

*     *     *
Once there, he filed a report stating that he was answering a call of domestic violence, the kind of cases that were often overlooked. Around him, the officers had their faces hidden by the protective face shield. The only people who showed their face were the officers behind desks, performing bureaucratic duties. He never reflected on the fact that he had never seen the faces of his colleagues. He actually had no idea who his colleagues were. They were strangers in uniforms and nothing more.

In the single-person locker room he removed his helmet and his clothes. Officers could not change into civilian clothing if they were together; they were required to keep their helmets on all the time and not familiarize with each other. Marco never questioned that rule before, and now it seemed to him so silly and nonsensical. Who were the people behind the helmets? Were they like him? He had to find out. Maybe there were others like him, lost, alone. Searching for something more than simple criminals.

That night, as he slept in his small, empty apartment room, he saw Lucrezia again. And this time her face showed a happy expression. He woke up in the middle of the night with a nostalgic sensation. For the first time in what seemed a lifetime he felt lonely. His hands spread on the small single bed, wishing for someone to hold close.

*     *     *
"Seems pretty quiet." Marco said, trying to strike up a conversation with the other officers.

The small foot patrol of four people was standing nearby the municipal building of Viterbo. It was almost sunset and the people passing by were hurrying back to their houses to make dinner or to a restaurant. The various druggies who crossed the square were all eating a slice of pizza, kebab, or Chinese street food for a modest price.

"Yeah," said the officer called Orlando. Marco had never worked with him before, nor with the other two officers.

"Is this your first time in Viterbo? I don’t think I ever saw you before."

"I was stationed in Calabria. Horrible place, lots of fighting down there."

"I heard that it was pretty bad down south. Guess you’re enjoying this," Marco said.

"You can bet. Down there it was pretty harsh, we were always on the edge, most criminals had lots of places to hide in the countryside. But here? This place is a paradise compared to that. There are less killings and better food. You guys have it pretty good up here, let me tell you," Orlando replied.

"I guess so." Marco said, thinking about how to get to the next question. He had thought of an idea, something that haunted him over the past few days, something about his past. He needed to know if he was the only one. He resolved to ask his question, without circling around it.

"Can I ask you something personal? Why did you get into this job? I mean, it’s pretty tough, not many people would do it."

"It’s because of what happened to my family," Orlando said.

"I’m sorry to hear that, didn’t mean to dig up bad memories."

"No need for apologies. My wife and two children were killed during a shootout between two Mafia families. They died on the spot. I thought that I had to do right, honor their memory. I couldn’t keep them safe, but I can keep others safe. You know what I mean?"

"I think ... I think I do," Marco replied, reflecting on Orlando’s story.

"I guess we all lost someone we cared about. What about you guys?" Orlando said, asking the other two officers, who had kept quiet.

"Well, I joined the force because of what happened to my girlfriend," the one whose name tag read Marino said. "We were supposed to get married, but the week before our wedding she was kidnapped, raped, and killed by a bunch of criminals with ties to a Mafia clan."

"Fucking hell."

"I’m sorry to hear that," Marco said. "What about you? Why are you here?" he asked the last officer, Scanzi.

"I ... I’ m not sure."

"What do you mean? You don’t know why you’re doing this job?"

"Is just that, I don’t know ... I’m sorry, I don’t recall right now."

"But that’s stupid. It’s your life and you don’t remember it?" Marco said, unsure whether to believe his colleague or not; it seemed too absurd to be true.

"What about you? Why did you join the force?" Scanzi replied, taking him by surprise.

"I did it ... for the money," Marco lied. "I had no job and they were searching for recruits and I thought about giving it a shot."

"That was a dumb move," Orlando said. "There are safer ways to make money."

Marco nodded without saying a word. The stories of his colleagues seemed so typical, their tragedies almost boring. All of them had a personal dramatic story to tell, just like himself. His story was basically the same as Orlando’s: a family killed in the line of fire and the desire to do good. It tasted like a lie, a ready-made origin story for the two of them. He wondered how many men and women on the force had joined the army in their grief for a lost loved one. Then a thought occurred to him: when was the last time he had visited his family at the local cemetery? It had been so long, so long that he almost felt that he couldn’t properly remember their faces. Was his wife a brunette or a blonde? Shivering, he attempted to recall his children and he realized, feeling his throat going dry, that he could not recall if he had boys or girls. He felt the bile rising and he hoped that his knees wouldn’t fail him; he did not want to collapse in the middle of the square during working hours, that could have aroused suspicions. Attempting to calm down, he tried to envision a way to solve his memory problem; he could simply ask his friends and family, surely they could help him. But who were his friends? He could not picture the face of a person that he would classify as a friend. As for his parents, when he attempted to visualize them nothing came: a black hole was standing right in the middle of his memory, devouring anything that defined him as a person.

His oppressing chain of thoughts was interrupted by a group of three druggies passing by. One of them fell on the ground over his kebab, splattering the food all over his chest, and the other two tried to help him stand up. Orlando made his move and the other officers followed him. The three druggies, noticing the patrol coming towards them, tried to stand up straight as best they could.

"Good evening citizens, what is going on here?"

"Nothing officer, nothing. He had a little too much, he’s going to be all right soon," one of them tried to explain.

"Even so, we are going to need a list of the drugs you used and the corresponding receipts from the store that sold them to you. Thank you in advance for your cooperation, citizens."

The three druggies had little choice, and soon they described all the drugs they took in the last few hours and gave the officers the receipts.

"You said that you took heroine chewing gums with a strawberry flavor," Orlando said, scanning the small pieces of paper "but there is no receipt for such a drug."

"Aw man, come on, I probably lost it somewhere." the stoner said, frantically searching inside his pockets.

"In case you cannot produce the receipt you’ll be subjected to a fine of 50.000 lire. If you cannot pay the fine we’ll be forced to accompany you to the station and then to the prison. The period of detention is between five and thirty days."

"Come on man, gimme a break here."

"Thank you for your understanding, citizen."

Orlando moved to grab the druggie by his arm, but before he could do it, he was pushed down by officer Scanzi. Orlando fell heavily on the ground. Marco couldn’t believe his eyes. The three druggies just stood there, confused about what happened.

"Have you lost your mind?" Orlando said. "What is wrong with you?"

Scanzi did not reply and kicked Orlando in the groin, leaving him in agony on the cobblestones.

"Fucking fascist!" Scanzi yelled. "Damn pig."

Marco and officer Marino tackled him before he could strike Orlando again. The three officers squirmed on the ground under the stupefied eyes of the three druggies and the few people that passed by in that moment. Soon, people began to film the scene and take pictures.

*     *     *
The station was abuzz with the news of what happened. An officer assaulting a colleague without reason. Marco filed his report on what happened and then searched for Orlando, finding him on his way to the single locker room. He wasn’t concerned for him, but for Scanzi and his fate.

"What happened to him? Did they take him to the prison?"

"No, he was taken away by the I.G.A."

"The secret service? Why?" Marco asked.

"They classified it as an act of subversion. Apparently an officer striking a colleague could have a devastating effect on the collective consciousness of the population, and that’s the I.G.A jurisdiction. Or something like that."

"I see."

"Now I gotta go, I want to get out of this uniform and go home, it’s been a shitty day," Orlando said.

"Wait. Before you go, I would like to ask you a question." Behind his helmet, Marco bit his lip. "Do you remember your family?"

"Of course I do. What kind of question is that?" Orlando replied with a hint of irritation in his modulated voice.

"I mean, do you remember other people in your family besides your wife and children? Like your mother and your father?"

"Look, I’ve had enough of this. I just want to go home."

Orlando slipped inside the locker room, leaving Marco without an answer.

*     *     *
It was raining when he got to the cemetery. He found it fitting, in a romantic way. His search was slow and methodical, and yet it bore no fruit. He spent the entire afternoon searching the various tombstones and found nothing. There were many fresh flowers made wet by the rain, laid upon the graves. Some of them recent, some of them a few days old, gently given to the graves of young men killed by a police bullet or during a robbery. It did not matter, they were gone, and the flowers were the parting gift from the world of the living. He stopped walking, standing in the middle of the cemetery street, allowing the rain to gently drum over his helmet.

"Officer?" a voice called. "Is everything okay?"

An elderly man with a reinforced umbrella came to him. He seemed concerned.

"Is there a problem?"

"No citizen, it’s just ..." Marco began. "It’s just that I can’t find my parents’ graves."

"Oh, I’m sure they are around here. It’s not like they could leave," the old man tried to joke. "I work here, by the way, I’m the gardener. Maybe I can help you take a look around."

"It’s pointless. They are not here. My parents are not here. So is my family."

The old gardener did not understand what the officer meant, but he was tired of standing in the rain, so he dragged the uniformed man inside a small chapel that served as a family grave. There, surrounded by the dead, Marco tried to be more clear about his search.

"I lost my family years ago, which is why I wear this uniform. I remember them clearly, but I can’t find them. I never visited their grave except for the funeral service. Or at least I remember doing that. But now I can’t find it anymore. I tried to remember my parents, maybe that could help me, but I can’t remember them either. I thought that maybe they were dead as well and that I should search for them. But they are not here. I’ve been walking around for the whole day and I can’t find them, my parents, my wife and children. And I’m having a terrible idea right now, and it scares me: are they even real? Am I losing my mind? What am I? I tried to remember something, but the only thing I remember is my routine, wake up, go to work, go home, sleep, repeat. That’s it, that’s what I am."

He removed his helmet and the old man could see his distressed face on the verge of tears.

"I met a woman a few days ago," Marco continued. "She showed a me a picture of a man, a criminal, and I look just like him. And when I tried to remember if I knew her from before, nothing came out of it. But sometimes, when I dream, I’m with her, happy. And there are other people with me, friends. But they are not real, are they? They are just pictures inside my head."

"But," the old gardener began, "the woman is real. She exists. And you dream of her."

"Yes, I do."

"It seems to me that this woman is the only thing real in your life right now. So, why don’t you go to her? Maybe she can help you make sense of things."

Marco tried to calm down and considered the old man’s suggestion. It was the only possible route he could see in front of himself; going to her house, showing her his face, hoping for the best. What else was there to do? It was a risk, Lucrezia could have reacted badly, but it was a risk worth taking. She could help him remember, she could fix him. Maybe after all there was a future awaiting for him at the end of this absurd quest; there must have been a reason why she had invaded his dreams and refused to leave him alone. Silently, he put his helmet back on.

"Thank you very much."

"You’re welcome. But I liked you better without that thing covering your face. You looked more human."

Marco gave his thanks to the old man once more and left. He felt his heart beating madly, not just at the idea of what was going to happen to his life, but simply because he was going to see her again. The more he thought about it, the more he felt sure: he loved her, and had loved her before. There was no need for more information, the bond between them was clear to him; and he was sure that once he showed her his face, she would see that bond as well. It was not going to be easy of course, resistance on her part was to be expected. Shock, fear, disgust, rage. He could take them all for her, it didn’t matter.

"Officer Rossi."

He stopped. Not far from him there were two people, standing in the rain with their umbrellas and black suits. One of them was a tall, bald man, the other was a woman with short, blondish hair and piercing light blue eyes. She seemed young.

"Yes?"

"I’m Agent Bellanti, from the I.G.A. We need to talk to you, come with us please."

"What’s this about?" Marco asked, feeling uneasy. The members of the Information Gathering Agency were heavily disliked by military members, and Marco was no exception.

"We need to talk about the Scanzi case, the officer who attacked your colleague. We need to clarify a few things."

"I can’t, I’m on duty now," he lied.

"You spent all day in that cemetery. You neglected your duty. Come with us, please."

Marco clenched his fist and walked slowly towards the two agents. He had no intention of going with them, but he also wanted to know why they were there. Quickly, he made up his mind.

Once in reach, his hand grabbed his electric baton and turned it on, hitting the tall man with a swing. The baton struck his chest and the electric current, combined with the rain, stunned the man, who fell on the wet ground. Agent Bellanti took a step back, trying to put some distance between the officer and herself. To her surprise, Marco dropped the baton and reached for his handgun before she could do the same.

"What do you want from me?" he asked.

"We just want to help you," Agent Bellanti replied, calmly. "Officer Orlando reported to us that you were asking strange questions. So we kept an eye on you and your activities. I guess you feel very confused right now. We can help you."

"I’m fine. I’m leaving now, I’m going away. Don’t follow me."

"I won’t," she said, "but others will. And they won’t ask you politely. Where are you going? Are you taking someone with you? And then what? Are you going to live the rest of your life on the run from us? Have you forgotten who we are and what we can do? The entire country is militarized and the borders are closed. Had you taken all of this into account when you chose this path?"

Marco did not lower his gun. He was scared, too scared to give up. But the words of the agent had an impact on him: it was true, the country was controlled by military men and secret agents, and running away was going to be next to impossible. Not to mention that he wanted to bring Lucrezia with him. He would have ended up dragging her along in his great escape, condemning her to the life of a fugitive. And eventually they would have been captured and brought back, to face the consequences. The fear that pushed him to react and attack the two agents slowly went away and something worse took its place: the bleak sensation of defeat. The awareness of being a rat in large cage that could run around for a while before being cut down by a superior hand. In the grand scheme of things he was nothing, a foot soldier awaiting orders and obeying them without much thought; fighting the system was an impossible feat for someone like him, for he knew perfectly how mighty and indestructible the system was. The mere idea of challenging it head on appeared to him as a juvenile fantasy: fighting the men in black and running away with the girl. He knew he was going to fail, and in his failure she would have suffered with him. That was enough to break him.

Slowly, his arm holding the weapon fell by his side. The tall agent, with a grunt, managed to get back on his feet. Agent Bellanti took the gun from his hand. Marco could do nothing except plead.

"Who am I?" he asked to the young woman. "Do you know?"

"I can explain, but it won’t do you any good."

The two agents brought him to their car and the trio drove off, leaving the city. Agent Bellanti ordered him to take off his helmet. He obeyed and then felt a gentle prick on his neck. Bellanti had struck him with a small needle. Marco understood quickly what it contained, as he lost consciousness.

*     *     *
When he woke up he was naked and strapped to a metallic chair. In the small white room there were only a man in lab coat and Agent Bellanti, signing some documents and talking to the doctor. Marco tried to speak, but he was still dazed from the drugs. Noticing that he had woken up, the agent and the doctor went to him.

"Where ... ?" Marco asked.

"It doesn’t matter. Soon it won’t matter to you," she told him.

"Who ... who am I?"

"You were a problem. We changed you, made you into someone useful," the doctor said.

"We decided to use you to help us," Bellanti continued. "I don’t know if you ever realized it, but this country is going down the toilet. The constant conflict with criminal gangs has created a demographic problem. Too many people are dying or emigrating, we have less and less manpower each year. It was decided to use people like you to help us refill our ranks. Criminals, drug addicts, useless people. You were recycled and given a new life as a servant of the state. But apparently you broke your programming, and here you are."

"But that’s still useful to us," the doctor replied. "Even a failed subject can give valuable data."

"Whatever," Bellanti said, uninterested. "The important thing is that you have no value as an officer anymore, so you are going to be recycled again. At least we’ll make something useful out of you."

"So ... was I really that man? Claudio?" Marco asked weakly, trying to process what the agent told him. He wasn’t really an officer, he wasn’t a family man and he cared nothing for justice. He was another person, trapped inside another personality with a fake history and fake ideals.

"I don’t know who you were, that’s not important. We have to fix you and make you useful."

"Please, let me go," he pleaded, knowing that it was useless. "I’m not that man anymore. I’m not a criminal anymore. You erased that man, right? I’m not him, I don’t deserve to be punished in his place, please. Let me go."

"You are not officer Marco Rossi either, you are not one of us anymore, you are a potential danger," Bellanti replied. "What are we supposed to do with you?"

"I can be another person, I can be better. I was a good officer, I followed the law, I was a good person. Let me be that again."

Bellanti said nothing this time; she turned her back to him and silently left the room, leaving him alone with the doctor.

"Please," he repeated, "help me."

"Not a chance," the doctor mocked him, filling a syringe with a blueish liquid. "We are going to alter your mind once again and give you another job."

Marco closed his eyes, crying. It was over, he was never going to see Lucrezia, ever again. Even if they were to meet again, he would have forgotten about her. She would have become simply another face in the crowd, covered in a veil of sadness and defeat. And he would have passed by her, ignoring her anguish and solitude, classifying her as another passerby and nothing more. It was one thing to spare her from further pain, but he did not want it to end like this, without ever seeing her again or worse: seeing her and not remembering her at all. To forget his past self after discovering his real identity would have been a fate worse than death, punished to be a different man with a different name and different memories. A mask made of false thoughts would have forever hidden his true identity.

Or maybe not. He recalled how everything started, how his programming was slowly broken: it all began by seeing someone he had known in his past life. An idea came to him. Perhaps that miracle could be replicated, he just needed a chance to interact with her again to bring his true self to the surface of whatever false persona they were going to build for him. The sense of hopelessness was still strong within him, but he pushed back and forced himself to hope one last time, his final act in his life before being transformed into someone else.

"Listen," he said, "what kind of job will they give me?"

"I don’t know, they are short on everything. You could end up doing anything."

"Can you send me to a specific job?"

"Why would I?" the doctor replied. "What’s in it for me?"

"Study me," Marco said quickly, his mind racing wildly. "Put me in a place with lots of people, see how I interact with them, and see how my ... programming goes. You said I was valuable, right?"

The doctor, syringe in hand, did not reply, but he did not move, like he was thinking about something. Marco watched him with hopeful eyes, waiting for an answer. He had little faith in that man, but he looked less stern and serious compared to the Agent Bellanti. Members of the secret service were not well-liked in the country, and he hoped that maybe that man was of the same opinion. Then the needle penetrated his skin and everything became a blur. The man called Claudio then and Marco now became a shell filled with cracks, his personality dripping everywhere, and a new, liquid persona was injected into him. A newborn soul came into the world.

*     *     *
She detested being in line at the post office. The crumbling digital infrastructure of the country forced a lot of people to go directly to the post office to pay their bills. Standing in the rain with her old umbrella, Lucrezia managed to get in after her number was called. She went to the clerk assigned to her, number three, but he was nowhere to be found.

"Are you kidding me?" she said, stomping her feet, exasperated. In that moment a man came running to her and she felt like she’d seena ghost. He had a boyish face and short curly hair.

"I’m sorry, sorry to keep you waiting!"

"Claudio?" she said with a faint voice.

"Hum, no. My name is Patrizio. How can I help you?"

Handing over her bills, Lucrezia watched the man work, and the more she watched the more she convinced herself that he was Claudio. His mannerism, his voice, they were both so similar. She had no idea how it was possible, but a voice inside of her told her that the man she loved had come back. At the same time she knew it was impossible. Claudio was gone, disappeared inside the prison system, far away from her.

"Is everything all right?"

His words brought her back to her senses and she realized that tears were streaming down her cheeks. She cleaned herself up, feeling embarrassed.

"I’m sorry."

"Don’t be," he said, "it’s a difficult period for all of us. This war, this situation, makes us feel awful. I lost someone because of a shootout. A person I loved. Sometimes it’s okay to just feel sad."

She nodded a little, wiping away her tears. He handed back her bills. The way he smiled at her reminded her of Claudio even more.

"Are you doing something this evening by chance?" he inquired.

"No," she replied, a bit surprised.

"How about a drink later? I left you my number in those papers and I got yours."

"You’re pretty fast."

"It’s just that you remind me a lot of someone. I would hate to see you go like this."

When she left the post office she felt a sensation that had become foreign to her. Happiness had left her heart since the man she loved never came back. Maybe that man from before was his reincarnation, his love made material, searching for her, never giving up on her.

As she walked down the street she heard sirens in the rain and the sound of cars running. It was a chase. A runaway criminal trying to escape from the armed forces patrolling the street. She was still walking when she heard the sound of gunfire, far away in the rain.