My Santiago

The Middle Class Man

Coming in on cue, he plays the middle-class man with aplomb. His conviction enthrals and as one, the audience rises for the encore. Yet even as he struts and conjures life’s double-breasted fool, -tie attired, face reflected in polished brogues, the yardstick of the elegant- there lurks in recessed niches wisps of a person’s irreverence’ mocking his life’s work. Digressing, on the half-expressed word in the midst of serious frivolities, he is startled by a strange reflection in the finger smudged glass; His! And he is relieved at the face that comes to him. A face that betrays - only to the patient - a life, a conviction, beating in measured and strong pace. And this redeems him.