How delicate is the soul of man! Lighter than the feathers of the fowls of heaven. Effortlessly snatched up in joy, quickly descending with speed into the harshness of Hade’s sorrow and sinking into the darkness of loneliness.
The afternoon came yesterday, and all seemed, unreasonably perhaps, gracefully beautiful. Everything seemed to flow in the light, flowing quietly upon each other without clashes or crashes. And the people looked beautiful. They touched each other tenderly with tame and straightforward looks. They all smelled of green soap, lavender, and innocence. It all seemed like a child’s game, half fake, half real.
I went to buy a coffee at the neighborhood bakery and stood off to the side for a while after giving my order to the clerk. A woman in black entered the shop at that time and asked for a sweet in a loud voice and made her way to the cashier to pay. And I, the wretch, feared that she wanted to push me aside, to take away the primacy of the “paradise” I occupied, and I intervened and spoke, asking for my fair share.
The black-clad woman, startled, apologized, and then I understood that she had no intention of pushing me aside. I was ashamed.
I paid and walked out. I looked around. The world was not as bright. The people looked dark, and as I watched them, I observed the shit faces, the dusty feet, the dirty armpits; I imagined the loneliness that awaited them in their dark, untidy houses, the suffering that awaited them in their lives that they ignored.
Where before I saw the light, now shadows were beating and tearing apart the facets of things. Where before everything seemed to flow quietly and unified in the peace of the afternoon, now everything seemed like ugly fragments and disconnected pieces, haphazardly thrown together on a wounded, dirty battlefield.
My heart tightened. I trembled then when I understood that the human heart is a delicate and fragile thing and that it is susceptible to many things, that it cannot long, without laborious exercise, remain in the light but is going on and on towards the comfortable realm of the darkness of division and death.
