The showcase of our lives is not made of glass:
it is a nocturnal animal that swallows the day
and regurgitates it in distorted glimmers,
it is a corridor of reflections where each shadow has a name,
where each glimmer is a flaw, a triumph,
a remnant of sun that could not die.
Full of glimmers and shadows, yes, but not as decoration.
They are residues, they are shards, they are small luminous ruins
that the day drops
when it rushes past our skin.
And we, walking showcases, carry everything:
what burns, what fails, what remains, what insists.
It has no skin, it has reflection.
The body is made of everything the day could not carry.
Broken glimmers, shadows that remained,
remnants of light that refused to die.
It moves like someone passing through mirrors.
Each step is a noise of glass being rearranged.
It doesn’t breathe air, it breathes failed flashes of light.
It collects what we drop during the day:
the small shames, the discreet triumphs,
the thoughts that lacked courage.
It is a collector of luminous residue.
At night, it chews them.
It transforms brightness into shadow, shadow into brightness,
until everything becomes a single matter:
imperfect luminescence.
The animal doesn’t hunt. It watches.
It stands still in corners, shop windows, windows,
as if waiting for someone to recognize it.
When someone sees it, it doesn’t run away:
it inclines its head, as if silently asking
if that person is ready to carry what they dropped.
It always appears at the moment when the day fails:
when the light hesitates,
when the sky doesn’t know whether to darken or persist.
It is in this interval that it materializes,
made of hesitation.
To see it, you only need to be tired.
To touch it, you just have to have lost something.
They say in the city that there is a being
that only appears when the day fails.
They call it the Beast of the Leftovers.
It has no eyes: it has windows.
Each window shows what the person tried to hide during the day,
a cursed gesture, a clandestine joy,
a thought that shouldn’t have survived.
The boys say that if you look at this window,
you see your reflection with a delay,
as if the animal were deciding whether to return you or devour you.
The elders say that it is not a threat, it is an auditor of light,
guardian of the small ruins we let fall.
City, 11:17 PM.
The last train has already passed.
The station lights hesitate, flicker, fail, breathe.
It is at this moment that the nocturnal animal appears.
Not as a monster, but as an employee of the night.
He walks down Station Street collecting glimmers:
a laugh that escaped from a café,
a thought someone tried to forget
on the way home,
a small fear left at the foot of the roundabout.
Each glimmer collected transforms
into a shadow he keeps on his body.
And when he reaches the square, he stops, looks at the city,
and returns a single light,
the one someone will need the next day.
The city never sees him whole.
But you feel it when he passes:
the air becomes thicker,
as if the night were rearranging the remnants of the day.
