One Hundred Years of Solitude

with two rings on the same
finger about to go astray in
the darkness. He felt the
structure of the veins, the
pulse of its misfortune, and
felt the damp palm with a
lifeline cut off at the base of
the thumb by the claws of
death. Then he realized that
this was not the woman he
was waiting for, because she
did not smell of smoke but of
flower lotion, and she had
inflated, blind breasts with