I fused the beauty of dreaming and the reality of life into a single blissful colour.. ...On a clear bright day even the softness of the sounds is g… - Fernando Pessoa

I'm riding a tram and, as is my habit, slowly absorbing every detail of the people around me. By 'detail' I mean things, voices, words. In the dress of the girl directly in front of me, for example, I see the material it's made of, the work involved in making it – since it's a dress and not just material – and I see in the delicate embroidery around the neck the silk thread with which it was embroidered and all the work that went into that. And immediately, as if in a primer on political economy, I see before me the factories and all the different jobs: the factory where the material was made; the factory that made the darker coloured
thread that ornaments with curlicues the neck of the dress' and I see the different workshops in the factories, the machines, the workmen, the seamstresses. My eyes' inward gaze even penetrates into the offices, where I see the managers trying to keep calm and the figures set out in the account books, but that's not all: beyond that I see into the domestic lives of all those who spend their working hours in these factories and offices...A whole world unfolds before my eyes all because the regularly irregular dark green edging to a pale green dress worn by the girl in front of me of whom I see only her brown neck.

'A whole way of life lies before me.
I sense the loves, the secrets, the souls of all those who worked just so that this woman in front of me on the tram should wear around her mortal neck the sinuous banality of a thread of dark green silk on a background of light green cloth.
I grow dizzy. The seats on the tram, of fine, strong cane, carry me to distant regions, divide into industries, workmen, houses, lives, realities, everything.
I leave the tram exhausted, like a sleepwalker, having lived a whole life.

For me life is an inn where I must stay until the carriage from the abyss calls to collect me [...] I could consider this inn to be a prison, since I'm compelled to stay here; I could consider it a kind of club, because I meet other people here. However, unlike others, I am neither impatient nor sociable. I leave those who chatter in the living room, from where the cosy sound of music and voices reaches me. I sit at the door and fill my eyes and ears with the colours and sounds of the landscape and slowly, just for myself, I sing vague songs that I compose while I wait.
Night will fall on all of us and the carriage will arrive. I enjoy the breeze given to me and the soul given to me to enjoy it and I ask no more questions, look no further. If what I leave written in the visitors' book is one day read by others and entertains them on their journey, that's fine. If no one reads it or is entertained by it, that's fine too.

Ζήτησα τόσο λίγα απ' τη ζωή, αλλά ακόμα κι αυτά τα λίγα η ζωή μού τα αρνήθηκε. Ένα υπόλειμμα από ένα κομμάτι ήλιου, λίγη ύπαιθρο, λίγη ησυχία κι ένα κομμάτι ψωμί, να μη με βαραίνει πολύ η γνώση ότι υπάρχω, να μην έχω καμιά απαίτηση από τους άλλους ούτε κι αυτοί από μένα. Ακόμα κι αυτό μου το αρνήθηκαν, όπως αυτός που αρνείται να δώσει ελεημοσύνη όχι γιατί του λείπει η καλοσύνη, αλλά γιατί βαριέται να ξεκουμπώσει το παλτό του.