In his chest, since he was a child trembling from the darkness of the room, a compass was placed. It was not bought from a market, nor was it made by a blacksmith. It was planted there secretly, pulsating whenever his heart leaned a tilt. Its needle was light as a butterfly's wing; if he lied, it would tremble northward whispering: return, and if he comforted a broken heart, it would warm up until it nearly burned him from excess tenderness.

The man grew up, and put on his chest armor called necessity, and carried on his shoulders heavy bags called everyone does it. And every time he took a step, his feet raised a subtle dust invisible to the eye... the dust of justification. Dust that accumulates quietly until it covers everything. And one night, while he was mending a small lie with threads of excuses, he heard a faint rattle in his chest. He put his hand on it, his heart trembling. The compass was there, but its luster had faded. A thick gray dust had veiled it, and under the dust, rust was eating it silently, as forgetfulness eats the heart piece by piece.

It whispered to him in a tired voice as if returning from a long journey: You forgot me. He trembled and shuddered, and remembered a sentence he had read by chance on an abandoned wall: Iron does not rust from a single rain, but it rusts from a drop you leave on its back and sleep. From that night, he made a covenant he never broke. Whenever the house lights went out and the city fell silent, he sat on the edge of his bed, imagined taking out the compass from his chest, and wiped the dust off with his trembling fingertips. He asked it one sharp question like a merciless sword: Today... where did you tilt? The first days it lied to him, just as he had lied to himself for years. Then it fell silent out of shyness and shame. Then one night, the needle trembled a shy tremor towards the north, and a tear fell from his eye, without name or reason. The next day, he went to a man whose heart he had broken with a word months earlier. He did not preach, nor justify, nor embellish his speech. He stood before him and said it with painful honesty: Forgive me, I burdened you. When he returned home, he placed his hand on his chest and found the compass warm, as if a merciful hand had passed over it with a cloth called action. There, at that moment, he finally understood the secret that had eluded him for so long: The conscience never dies. It only gets tired of shouting into a valley that does not answer, and suffocates little by little under the rubble of excuses we throw at it every day mercilessly. And today, the man's compass still bears many scratches. He still occasionally neglects it, leaving the mark of his fingers and the imprint of his carelessness. But he learned the lesson that cannot be bought or sold: The compass does not need to be made of pure gold to guide you on the path; it is enough to pass over it every night with a truthful hand that wipes away the dust of the day before you sleep. For a road without a compass, even if paved with silk and roses, inevitably ends in a maze. And a heart without a prick, even if it laughs heartily, is a dead heart.