You can’t get attached to the moments, she said. They fly away. 

But that is where I live, I protested. I had even been told, Nothing exists except a moment.

We were making love on an upper berth of the sleeper to Irún. Claire was naked above me. I had on not just my shirt but the rumpled linen jacket. A corner of my passport pressed into my thorax.

In the window, the mining towns flashed by, like voices that speak only once.