And like Alice, falling down the rabbit hole without realizing that she was actually falling, without feeling dizzy or experiencing any sense of alarm, we fell into this enormous garden that is COVID-19.

And we drifted, oblivious to the enormous problem this could pose, because we assumed that all swans were white until we found a black one. And how black it was: darker than the lord of darkness, more dramatic than a Shakespeare play, more ironic and surreal than any film by Berlanga.

Alice was falling and the dogs were going outside, while the children stayed at home. And as she fell, she managed to grab a jar from a cupboard set into the walls of the rabbit hole, labelled “Orange juice”. But this time there was no orange juice left—not even at the supermarket, for that matter; not even toilet paper, or anything with which to clean oneself.

When she reached the ground, she hit it hard. We did it brutally. And the sound was the thunderous roar of thousands of claps at eight in the evening, to remember those who were fighting for the lives of those we love. But how hard the fall was. The bench where we used to rest in the shelter of the afternoon’s last rays of sunlight was now an unreachable place, filled with nostalgia, like someone remembering an old love or a loved one who is no longer here.

And it is only a bench twenty metres away, but how far away it is.