I tried to lift the blossom from the vase but it stuck to my fingers just as it stuck to the glass, the water, the perfume. I moved my mouth to speak, to make sounds, and I did make sounds but the words that formed them did not have any meaning; the sounds, too, were stuck to my mouth and would not come out. I tried to swallow them but they remained there in my throat and it was hard for me to breathe; every breath made me swallow these words that would not pass through my lips nor fall from my tongue. My hands were already full of water, flowers, perfume; they had been filled with them for a long time and I could not let them go; every time I tried to open my fingers, my hands became fists; then they would no longer hold anything and I had to start over again.