I then spent almost an hour in the bathroom, sitting on the toilet, with the lid down, my elbows stuck in my knees and my smartphone leaning vertically against the mirror above the sink, with the stopwatch on. I counted my heartbeat an infinite number of times, first every twenty seconds, multiplying by three, then every thirty seconds, doubling the number detected and finally deciding that the best solution could be to count the beats for sixty seconds precisely, thus avoiding any calculation. The result has always been the same, around a hundred beats per minute, and the feeling of malaise has not changed: total lack of strength, dizziness, abnormal perspiration from every part of my skin, interrupted by occasional chills that ran through me from head to toe making me, for a few seconds,
