a perimeter...

"as he smoked a cigarette in the sun it occurred to him that in every city, in every house, in himself even, there existed a perimeter, a spot where people could seek refuge as they struggled to survive the events life imposed on them. an exclusion zone, a place of blindness, of small, slow insects, of redoubts, of sudden, never properly understood, never well-timed, moments of reversal."

juan carlos onetti, the shipyard