During a good part of autumn and winter, the sky over
Milano has no stars.
It is a low ceiling of
gray clouds, and it is lit by the orange light from the
sodium lamps. All the streets in Milan are lit in
orange, and the reflection is enough to turn the sky the color of rusted iron seen in a dim garage.
It is an entirely artificial sky, ready for the projection of ads.
It is a sky that can go on like that for weeks. Rain in the daytime, and in the night, either rain or a sky without stars.
When I went to call my then-girlfriend from the public phone close to the Lambrate train station, I would feel the weight of the sky over me. It was like being inside a metal bin. No surprise that we eventually split. The sky did it.