During the journey, Greg could make out (rather than see) a few squares, a few shops, some people wandering the streets. Here and there, in a black crater, he thought he could recognise the ghost of a café or a pizzeria, even though it was besmeared with soot, a sudden blackness in violent contrast with the whiteness of the light. Besmeared or besmirched? Let the devil come and decide.

What was he saying? The devil didn’t have to come, he was already there. The devil was, if not the owner, certainly an inhabitant honoris causa of the zone. That was the reason (precisely because it was a hell) that Greg had chosen that place, what remained of it, because the devil of that former paradise had made his home there.
Let’s be clear. Greg had come there to die.

At last, unable to bear it any longer, he made up his mind to take a walk along the Central Boulevard. He did not take a single pill that had been prescribed to him, and now he felt like a criminal. Indeed, why had he gone to the District Controller, why had he resorted to the Ministry? Now he was under some obligation. In a few days they would put in the fillings, for half a year. In half a year, he would be like all the others. So what did he want? What was he afraid of?

Gabr was walking along the Central Boulevard listening to the shuffling of feet and the voices of people passing him. Suddenly, and unexpectedly to himself, he tore both pads from his eyes.