At the six-thirty PM of our lives

At the six-thirty PM of our lives, when we are retiring from the places where we were at dawn, where we wandered through the labyrinth of time, with memories clinging to the corners of our clothes, with dreams forgotten in our pockets, we gather, like birds returning to their nests, packing up and cleaning the mess of the morning and noon, like craftsmen of the moment, trying to make sense of the chaos, to bring order to the disorder of the day, and maybe, just maybe, we choose a game, for sometimes the evening becomes monotonous, like a clock ticking softly, do we play chess? Poker? Or people? No, we left the game of people for the earlier hours, when we still had the energy to get lost in glances, to seek each other in smiles. Now, at the six-thirty PM of our lives, we straighten our wrinkled dresses, we pick the frayed threads of our thoughts, tired or less optimistic, we no longer fix our hair; it's fine as it is, it’s getting dark; no one will really look anymore, we don’t do a makeover; the sun is setting; everyone is looking less, we sit on the canvas we painted at nine AM, how beautiful is yours? How ugly is yours? We appear attractive in our simple dresses, trying to get used to the departure of light, trying to get used to the dullness. And at the six-thirty PM of our lives, the irony begins: we see more with our squinted eyes, we smile more with all the visible lines, we are wiser with our distorted minds, we rejoice even if we cannot leap, we are physically frail and mentally strong, like magicians who have learned to read the stars, but whose feet can no longer walk on earth, we find beauty in simplicity, we find peace in the silence of the evening, at the six-thirty PM of our lives, when the day retreats like a dream, when night approaches like a promise, we return to ourselves, to our essence, to that deep tranquility, to that melancholic magic that fills our souls.