Synopsis

“There's been a lot of activity in the house for a few days. Phone calls, the doorbell ringing, people coming and going.” Thus begins the unusual day of the protagonist of “If Tomorrow Will Come,” unusual because it's the day in which, piecing together small facts and catching quick words spoken by others, he realizes his condition. His daughter has never seemed so grown up as she is today; even a small hint of breasts are pushing against his shirt. But then again, time flies and children grow before your eyes and you don't even notice… and his wife, why isn't she coming? And then, Bepi, who came to visit, boring as a chronic illness with his always the same old talk. One hopes he wasn't offended, because this time he dozed off right while he was speaking, and he must have slept for a good while, because when he woke up, Bepi was gone. Then, suddenly, realization dawns, chilling like a shiver he now knows he can no longer feel running down his spine: an event (an accident? a stroke?) has confined him to bed and has robbed him of all physical sensation, even pain. A prisoner of his body, the protagonist's thoughts wander, soar, and then swoop down to the heart of the great dilemmas of existence and non-existence, which, seen from this perspective, take on a consistency and seriousness that forces the reader to reconsider every belief.