“Waiting. For the person who waits, Zeno’s paradox, which denies the completion of all movement, is less of a paradox than a lived experience. Matthew was living the paradox. For Théo to leave his parents’ flat in the rue de l’Odéon and cover the short distance to the Rhumerie (he told himself), he would first have to reach the boulevard Saint-Germain. But, before arriving on the boulevard, he would have to cross the carrefour de l’Odéon and, before the carrefour de l’Odéon, there would be the rue de l’Odéon to walk down, and before that, the kerb of the pavement to step off – an so on, to the point where he must still be standing, paralysed, on the threshold of his bedroom, on arm half in, half out his jacket sleeve.”

(from The Dreamers by Gilbert Adair.)