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Future Glory in the recondite offices of Ham-and-Cheese-on-Wheat. "Excuse me," I corrected. I was apologetic. I did my best to make my aggregate baggage of chromosomes and synthetic fibers very very very small, very melt-into-the-wall, quite anonymous. I could have been dead. We did not make eye contact. We did not brush shoulders or even glance backward; I believe we mistrusted one another. "Excuse me." We exchanged that humdrum anti-greeting like a high salaam in an Eastern dream. 
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Roughly translated, the expression means: "Do not look at me. Do not recognize me. I am trying to pretend you are not there. Some of us are monsters and disguised in hats." So I pressed my back to the railing, till he passed, held my breath, so as to avoid upsetting invisible vibrations. It was unwelcome I should affect this creature in any way, that I should allow him to affect me, that we should engage in potentially dangerous relations. Some of us were monsters and some of us were dead. But neither one of us failed to hear what it was the other one said.  |
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