at the rack

"dawn was infusing the countryside; it seemed to rise from the tender green wheat, from the rocks and the dripping trees, and mount imperceptibly towards a blank sky. the chiarchiaro of gramoli, incongruous in green uplands, looked like a huge, black-holed sponge soaking up the light flooding the landscape. captain bellodi had reached that point of exhaustion and sleeplessness which produces a series of incandescent fantasies: hunger does the same; at a certain intensity it fades into a kind of lucid starvation which rejects any idea of food. the captain thought: "this is where god throws in the sponge," associating the sight of the chiarchiaro with the struggle and defeat of god in the human heart."

--from the day of the owl by leonardo sciascia