Whenever the terrain became hilly, the bus crawled like a caterpillar, twisting through wild street branches that grew wider the further we moved away from the center, where it became darker and the suburbs appeared as if filled with gray ink at the bottom of a gigantic aquarium: canyons of buildings, antennas, treetops, and people merged like silver-dim silhouettes, swaying like undulating water plants on the bottom of this inky, sorrowful depth. Then came the tunnel, which was a cocoon - and suddenly we fluttered out on the other side, soaring high into the vast landscape of Lazio.