A Man May Change

As simply as a self-effacing bar of soap escaping by indiscernible degrees in the wash water is how a man may change and still hour by hour continue in his job. There in the mirror he appears to be on fire but here at the office he is dust. So long as there remains a little moisture in the stains, he stands easily on the pavement and moves fluidly through the corridors. If only one cloud can be seen, it is enough to know of others, and life stands on the brink. It rains or it doesn’t, or it rains and it rains again. But let it go on raining for forty days and nights or let the sun bake the ground for as long, and it isn’t life, just life, anymore, it’s living. In the meantime, in the regular weather of ordinary days, it sometimes happens that a man has changed so slowly that he slips away before anyone notices and lives and dies before anyone can find out.