For some reason or other, I’m alone in the office. Although this dawns on me suddenly, I had already vaguely sensed it. In some corner of my consciousness I’d felt a great sigh of relief, a deeper breathing with different lungs.

This is one of the strangest sensations that the fortuity of encounters and absences can bring: that of finding ourselves alone in a place that is normally full of people and noise, or that belongs to someone else. We suddenly have a feeling of absolute ownership, of vast and effortless dominion, and – as I said – of relief and serenity.

How good it feels to be completely alone! To be able to talk to ourselves out loud, to walk around without being looked at, to lean back in an undisturbed reverie! Every house becomes an open field, every room has the breadth of a farm.

The usual sounds are all strange, as if they belonged to a nearby but independent universe. We are kings at last. This is what we all truly long to be, and the most plebeian among us perhaps more ardently than those full of false gold. For a moment we are the universe’s pensioners, recipients of a steady income, with no needs and no worries.

Ah, but in those footsteps climbing the stairs I recognize someone who’s coming here, someone who will interrupt my amused solitude. My implicit empire is about to be invaded by barbarians. The footsteps don’t tell me who it is that’s coming; they don’t recall the footsteps of anyone I know. But I have a gut instinct that I’m the destination of what for now are merely footsteps, climbing up the stairs which I suddenly see, since I’m thinking about who’s climbing them. Yes, it’s one of the clerks. He stops, the door opens, he enters. I see all of him. And as he enters he says: ‘All alone, Senhor Soares?’ And I answer: ‘Yes, for some time now…’ And then, taking off his jacket while eyeing his other, older one that’s hanging up, he says: ‘To be here all alone is a real bore, Senhor Soares, and not only that…’ ‘A real bore, no doubt about it,’ I answer. ‘It almost makes you feel like sleeping,’ he says, already wearing the frayed jacket and walking towards his desk. ‘It certainly does,’ I agree, smiling. And reaching for my forgotten pen, I graphically re-enter the anonymous wholesomeness of normal life.