Times are so damn that many sit at work pondering: what can be done to earn a bit of money.

Every power speech coach will tell us that where there's a will, there's a way, but when it comes down to it, inspiration seems to be lacking.

We're helpless in the face of these mythical, whispered tales told by our grandmothers, of dark hours.

In those moments, one feels like stepping out for cigarettes or bread from the corner store and never returning. Definitely in slippers and an old coat, haphazardly thrown over striped pajamas. Leave behind documents, a perpetually empty wallet, keys, and of course, the phone, for added drama. Let everything burn, let it collapse, and let me disappear, resigning from my former life.

People sometimes get lost in the crowd, but when it comes to those who literally stepped out for a moment and never returned, it's always as if no one knows anything. No one saw anything, no one heard anything. They were here just a moment ago, and now they're gone. They've dissolved. Evaporated like camphor.

The duty officer will take the report, but not before 48 hours have passed. The guy at the copy shop will make hundreds of copies of some usually blurry face, with a desperate plea beneath that pixelated image, saying that if anyone saw anything, knew anything, or at least thought they did, then...

And then? And nothing. Hours, days, months, years pass, along with hundreds of speculations, suspicions, false leads. Clairvoyants and all kinds of detectives will bend over backward to point out the right body of water, abandoned building, or at least a psychiatric hospital.

• - Someone saw him strolling on the Moon.

• - That wasn't him, just someone similar.

• - Not similar at all! The other one was blond.

• - But I'm telling you, he's living in Africa now, has five wives, and a dozen kids with each. Information from a really reliable source.

• - Nonsense! Who if not him was seen in the underpass the other day?! He was playing the violin with one hand and peeling a tangerine with the other. It was the day before yesterday.

And when they tire of inventing these improbable scenarios with the missing person in starring roles, and the whole matter almost completely subsides, someone might occasionally revive the topic with a revelation that they just saw, met, brushed past them, and everyone will analyze, discuss, reminisce, doubt, or believe. And so it goes until the next "miraculous appearance" or not.