things move around

Today the elder of the tax guys, the one whose name is not Mike, or rather, whose name I don’t know, remains in the windowless room while his colleague goes out to kill some sandwiches and some soup. The silence is punctuated only by the echoing ktank of piledriving in the middle-distance. I crane my neck and see that the old fellow has laid down his head on his desk, pillowed by his folded arms, his face turned away from the door, his frame rising and falling softly with each breath; to me he looks frail and inadequate for the rigours of the world with its armour of thorns, its attack stance, its arsenal of cudgels and knives.