PART ONE.

It is still early morning when Taehyung plops down on the chair undecisive of what to write this time. He flips the postcard over and the shiny image of the Rialto Bridge over one of the worn-out brown gondolas, decorated with delicate golden, red and green brushes of paint, floating over one of the many river canals of the city, greets him just as uninspired as himself.

They stare at each other for a while before Taehyung sighs and flips the postcard again only to be met with a completely blank page waiting to be stained in permanent ink by his rushed handwriting. He wonders why he still had hopes to find it all written down already.

His thoughts were always jumbled and intertwined together and words never been voluntary to participate in difficult times like this. He supposes it is the burning sun peeking through the yellow-y blinds of his rented room that cradles up his neck and face that prevents him to write something good or, maybe the uneven tick that the ceiling fan does in every rotating cycle.

He flips the card again; the photo of Venice is still the same.

Was it yesterday that he was up on that same bridge? Over that same marble arch on the very top, feeling the breeze of the thin rivers, bathing the streets of red, orange and yellow? He certainly remembers the crowd, relentlessly, hurriedly taking pictures of nothing at all.

Sometimes there's a hasty feeling of pity when Taehyung sees that most people don't really care anymore about the real things, so preoccupied in freezing everything in tiny pixels, only to archive them later in folders they won't open again, that they end up forgetting they were before such emblematic places. It's such a shame, the camera doesn't pick up the vivid feeling of being there, in that moment, enjoying it.

People have become superficial, he thinks. It's not about the pleasure of travelling or getting to know brand new places and cultures anymore. But rather filling up their feeds and shallow conversations.

Millions of people visit Venice, every year but, do they all know that it used to be its own country until the end of XVIII century? Or that the first woman in the world to ever graduate in university was Venetian? Or that Marco Polo was actually a Venetian merchant and not just a game of hide-and-seek?

Taehyung picks up the pen again. He writes a promise.

To never become a superficial traveler.