Surrounded by high-rise buildings and questionable blue skies, the early morning light offers little guidance. Ombra, solo ombra. The aftermath of another seismic eruption, followed by another oasis. Triste apres l'amour. That moment when one feels that the core of one's being has been scraped, as with sandpaper, and there is nothing left to scrape. Because there is no bottom left.

All the accusations, finger pointing, and allusions to the things one has done, has not done, done too much, or too little of. His sharp, serrated remarks aimed directly at her knowledge. "Do you know anything at all?" Followed by the bitter stings of jealousy: a stranger's voice on the phone, a call made too late in the day to be convincing, the long blonde hair on the scarf, a thin red mark on the inside of a collar: the fault line of someone's lipstick, and so it goes....on and on.  These worlds that never meet—or meet only by chance—are chased away by a blonde, green-eyed monster who continues to rear its ugly head.

Sitting pensively at the edge of the bed, she wonders why she bothers with a man she cannot trust, a man that gives her nothing. To a nothingness, she continuously returns.

And he, lying naked, face down, buries his head in the pillow, wishing that he could end all of this—for her and for himself. He wishes that he did not exist, that he had taken different exits—or at least, that life would be a little easier—without all this pain, that never seems to end.

If one could arrive at truth through Reason! the philosopher reflects. But all he can hear is the screaming of her silence, with her back turned to him. Oh...if only he could scream...! (So much rage inside of him, only the Heimlich maneuver will save him). A sad, unbridgeable gap of two worlds spinning on two completely different axes. She, the excluded, and he the exiled—never part of anything. The meaning of Liebestod: two people who truly love each other: irreconcilably alone.