THE LINES stayed on my lips as I took my place beside Chelsea on the escalator and rose slowly towards the common level of the day. And they stayed on my lips as the artificial light of the mall gave way to the lambent late summer sunlight that softened the edges of the skyscrapers and the sidewalks, but not the faces of the strangers whose luck was no business of mine. I could note the differences in each face, the unique composition of bones and features, but they were all the same, all human and bound for loss. Why weren’t the faces rent by screams? Why did the earth not open and swallow us all and be done with it?
As the b****y hand of the intersection light changed to the little white man and I obeyed, the sweat beaded on my brow and my step leadened. I dropped slightly behind Chelse
