On a deserted terrace – an anonymous place somewhere between the end of summer and the harbinger of winter, where plastic chairs silently bear witness to conversations that no one remembers – lies a lighter. Not just any lighter, but an almost empty, transparent, orange loner, carelessly left on the edge of a table weathered by the seasons. The object balances, literally and figuratively, between function and oblivion, between usefulness and superfluity, between still being able to do something and ultimately doing nothing. Autumn has just begun – that vague period when the air already smells of fallen leaves, but the sun still shows its guilty face – and the wind gently tugs at the tablecloth that no one smooths out anymore. The lighter, once an instrument of fire and therefore of action, of intention, now lies like a defeated pawn in an abandoned game that no one wants to resume. Its shell is torn, its metal cap charred black, and inside it only a thin layer of gas moves, waiting for one last spark, one last chance to be useful.