The pigeon flew above the street with the fruit stands, the women in headscarves and tracksuits soaping away dog shit, the angel statue holding sleepy pigeons and the double-parked Fiats. It shat on a diamante-encrusted shoe, spread a brief shadow on a plastic table, dove towards the low rising sun and into the bicycle spokes of English teacher Anastasia.

In the part before the Torino morning bird slice, she had grown up cold and rural reading affectionate odes to pigeons with her babushka. In the part after it, she would be made late to a meeting with the pair of elderly sisters. Sisters who had between them three eyes, one husband in nappies smoking a pipe, seven English camps for Italian kids and countless euros. Because Anastasia was Russian, the sisters considered it acceptable to underpay her. When deciding our worth as teachers, they retraced the line where the east began. I watched the one-eyed sister boss flick through a novel of 50-euro notes. She asked about Anastasia’s whereabouts. I was busy imagining the world in half and wasn’t able to foresee a pigeon stuck in a bike wheel. When the bloody wheel of misfortune stopped, the beak from a mangled head pointed forward.