One day I was reading in front of the house of a Portuguese friend "Burning the Days" by the American author James Salter. I was completely engrossed in this compelling book when, at one point, I looked up and was struck by the contrast between the frenzied and passionate life as evoked in the book and the immobility, the void and the absence of life that I saw for me. Then I took this picture. Without the book of Salter I would never have seen the picture.