But no longer. Not since I met Nelio and carried him up to the roof and watched him die.

The anxiety that I sometimes felt is now gone. Or rather, I have come to understand that there is a crucial difference between feeling afraid and feeling anxious.

That was something else that Nelio explained to me.

'If you're afraid, it's like you're suffering from an insatiable hunger,' he said. 'But if you're anxious, you can fight off your anxiety.'

I think about his words, and I now know that he was right. I can stand here and look out over the night-time city, the fires flickering uneasily, and I can recall everything he told me during those nine nights that I spent with him and watched him die.

This rooftop is a vital part of the story. I feel as if I were at the bottom of the sea; I have sunk down and can go no further. I am at the bottom of my own story; it was here, on this roof, that it all began and it all ended.

Sometimes I imagine my task to be this: that for all eternity I will wander at the bottom, on this roof, and direct my words to the stars. Precisely that will be my task, for ever.

So here is my strange story, a story impossible to forget.

It was on that night a year ago, near the end of November, when the moon was full and the night was clear after the heavy rains, that I placed Nelio on the filthy mattress where nine days later, as dawn broke, he would die. Since he had already lost a great deal of blood, the bandages – which I did my best to fashion from strips that I tore from my own worn clothing – did little good. He knew long before I did that soon he would no longer exist.

That was also when everything started over, as if a peculiar new way of measuring time was suddenly established. I remember that quite clearly, even though more than a year has passed since then and many other things have happened in my life.

I remember the moon against the dark sky.