​What do you hold on to then? Most hold on to fragments of tiny accomplishments: the medal you won in a school race, some inconsequential society that honored you in an elocution contest, some student group you chaired in the university, the letter you published in the local newspaper and made your friends proud, the time your children thought you mattered because some politician publicly hugged you,  and the very rare occasion your spouse thought you had achieved anything when you got a minor promotion in your office.
 
You walk, teetering, on the narrow ledge of your ostensible achievements most of the day. But, as you sit alone in the darkening shadows, a thought gnaws at your heels like a tenacious Rottweiler: you have seen little, done little, meant little. While huge tides of events and movements have tossed round you, you have spent your days earning your bread, saving some money, buying a house and just watching others living or dying meaningfully, doing interesting or heroic things, leaving a footprint small or large on the wet sands of the beach. The waves will wipe them out, we know, but for a while it is something to exult over.
 
Isn’t that the great unsuccess that most of us live with? If you identify with that, then – welcome! – you belong to the Grand Army. You are one whom nobody will remember after a few years, just as nobody remembers after you have left a room after a few minutes. Nobody will write a book, or even a song or a blog, about you, because nobody will know what to put into it that will faintly interest others. Your friends will occasionally mention you, but they too will soon pass away or start losing their memories. Your neighbors have all moved to a larger house, a finer district. Your children? They have their lives to live, their problems to solve, their careers to pursue and their own children to nurture and send out into a hostile world.
 
So here is a thought. Stop ferreting crumbs of meaning from the rest of your life by going back to your old office and doing petty stints that drench you with a reassuring spray of usefulness. Stop turning to a remote Almighty you have largely avoided as a pathetic crutch and find utility in a comfortable suspension of disbelief. Stop clutching at straws in a sad, strenuous effort to avert the reality of your undistinguished, unaccomplished life.
 
Instead, suggests Auden, you do what Yeats did:

     Sing of human unsuccess
     in a rapture of distress.
​ 
Sing of your sorrow, write of your misery, but do it with verve and spirit, without shame and apology, knowing it to be a shared story of the human lot.
 
And may the others join in.

Everything was going well in his life, when Dr. Chatterjee suddenly found everything had gone wrong. He was a doctor, for Heaven’s sake, and he didn’t know that his wife was harboring a lethal infection. She complained of a slight headache, then a more acute pain, and the next thing she was dead.
​
He worked in the emergency department of a large hospital, invariably kept very long hours, and was admired by colleagues for his unstinted devotion to the work. His patients loved him, both for his skill and his genial bedside manner. Now he discovered that he had been able to live in the way he did only because his wife had run his home punctiliously like clockwork.

What would he do, most of all, about his twelve-year-old son whom his wife had just placed in a new school? How would he look after him and how would he find the time to help him with his books or his sports?

He turned to his friend and erstwhile patient, my father. The moment my father heard about the school the son had joined, he called me.

“This boy has just lost his mother,” he told me, “and his father, Dr. Chatterjee, is a very busy emergency room doctor. If he has to attend to his son, his patients would go without care. The boy has joined your school, he goes to the same class. So I am putting you in charge.”

He continued, “From next week, you will escort him to school and bring him back with you. He will stay with us during the week. Your mother and I will look after him at home. Outside, he will be your responsibility. The weekends you will take him to his father’s apartment in the hospital. All other times, you must look after him and be his best friend.”
​
He added, as a final word, “Remember, you have a mother. He hasn’t.” 

Come Monday week, I took him to school in a bus. When his father came to drop him off, he wore new, well-ironed clothes and well-polished shoes. I noticed now: he was an exceptionally good-looking lad, tall, lithe, lustrous dark hair, large soft eyes and a truly remarkable face with chiseled features. He had his father’s grace and mellifluous voice. He held my hands and thanked me for my company.

He had a somewhat imposing first name, and I wondered if I should float the idea of a simpler first name. The idea became moot by the end of second day of school. His classmates had already dubbed him the Prince.

Prince was very intelligent, but not particularly interested in studies. He did all right in his classes and tests, and I could report so dutifully to his father and mine. I also reported, to their satisfaction that he was well accepted in the school. This was a gross understatement, for in a few short weeks, he was one of the most popular boys in the school. This had to do doubtless both with his gracious manners and his sterling looks. As his popularity and circle of friends grew, our closeness waned, but we remained good friends and saw a good deal of each other.
​
Our paths parted after school. I went to a premier college, where the accent was relentlessly on academic performance. He chose a middling college where a clever sort like him could sail through without demanding diligence. He could do better, but did not have to.

Less than a year into college, at a private party Prince met a film director who was searching for a new face to cast in his next movie. To his father’s distaste, Prince ducked out of college and took the role. The film was a minor hit, and got him further offers. His next three films were all hits. He became the biggest name in the film studios of eastern India, facetiously called Tollywood. He got calls from Bollywood, the rich, mammoth studios of western India. Prince became a star not just in India or South Asia, but also in Middle East and East Europe.

Five years ago, on a rare visit to India, I went to a social event my brother, a movie producer, hosted. Amidst all the banter and laughter, I thought I heard a voice I recognized and turned immediately. It was Prince all right.
​
As he held my hand with his hallmark grace, the mellifluous voice prompted, “Tell me where have you been all these fifty years.”

​I have two disparate and strong feelings about houses.
 
First , I don’t like to own houses. Houses are for living in, and I am perfectly content to live in rented houses. I would pay the dues every month and let the landlord look after such prosaic things as fixing the plumbing and painting the deck. Some fusspot may say, “You can’t then have just the kind of house you like.” Nobody can. Practically everybody buys a house some building company has designed, and such designs invariably reflect what the average buyer wants. Rent or buy, your choice is always limited by what the market offers.
 
Second, I don’t like to change houses. That is putting it mildly. I hate the idea of moving. Imagine having to put all your things in boxes, taking them somewhere else, breaking some of them in the process or at least mixing them all, then rearranging them in a new place, and having to remember where you placed them when you need them. It is the closest thing to a nightmare. What avails all this pain? A larger house, a modern kitchen or a fancier bathroom? You compromise the quality of your life for a mess of pottage.
 
I realize these ideas are sacrilegious. Buying a home is the great middle-class dream. It is the asset you must acquire after you have bought a car. It is like buying a book you will not read or acquiring a piano you never intend to play. If a home is to live in, the quality of living is what matters, and the idea of ownership is not just secondary, but irrelevant.
 
The idea of moving up, from a smaller house to a large one, from one neighborhood to a more elite one, is sacrosant. Everybody does it. In fact, not to do so is to confess that you have given up on the finer things of life. You have, in reality, only given up on an immensely painful transition for a reasonably tranquil and comfortable existence.
 
Think for a second of the ultimate dream. Imagine you have the time and money to acquire the land, hire an architect and build a house that exactly matches your notion of an ideal home. I had occasionally entertained the idea that it might be a superlative thing to create a house of one’s dream and live in it. The idea promptly hit the dust when I visited what many consider the most beautiful home ever built, by one of the greatest architects who ever lived. 

​Edgar Kaufmann, who owned the largest department store in Pittsburgh, owned and visited a cabin in the Laurel Highlands of the Allegheny Mountains, in rural southwestern Pennsylvania forty miles from the city. What he liked most about the cabin was that he had a view of a picturesque waterfall in the Bear Run area. He thought of building a summer home there, whence he could see the waterfall daily. He engaged an architect he had heard about from his son studying architecture. He was simply the greatest living architect, Frank Lloyd Wright.
 
The charmingly named FallingWater mansion in Pennsylvania, built in the thirties, is stunningly beautiful. It is a National Landmark and Smithsonian lists it as “a place to visit before you die.” I almost felt my heart stop when I had my first look. But the Kaufmanns don’t live there and haven’t for a long while.
 
I wouldn’t either. It is a house to dream about, not to live in.
 
Let me add: Kaufmann wanted to see the waterfall from his home; Wright had his own idea and built a house right on top of the waterfall. The thousands who visit the house in the Steward Township of the Fayette county have a great view of the house and the waterfall. But I doubt Edgar Kaufmann felt he had the view he wanted in the first place.

“Do you have a pen to spare? Mine has run out of ink,” I asked of the classmate next to me.

He offered one with a decorous smile and said, “You can keep it.”
​
That is how I met Kamal the first day of college. I kept the pen and kept talking. After class he took me out for a cup of tea. He loved tea.

Of middle height, Kamal had a large shock of hair and bright pair of eyes, peering at you through thick lenses. He had the most elegant style of talking in the entire class: a dulcet, deliberate pitch, starting with a considerate pause and ending invariably with an amiable interrogation, “Don’t you think so?” The last would be embellished by a sunny half-smile and a gentle turning of his palm. It was hard to disagree with him.

No wonder he easily won in the election and became a leader in the student union. I won too, but with a smaller margin and much greater effort. Yes, I spoke loudly and inelegantly, and I waved my hands too much.

We became friends nevertheless. The first bridge was politics. We were both enmeshed in student politics and we talked endlessly of the big issues of the day: Marxism, social transformation, economic justice and student rights. But we soon found the second and broader bridge of literature. We both read prodigiously and felt passionately about what we read.

I read to him poems, mostly modern poems, that I loved. I read them loudly and clearly, not economizing on emphasis. He read his favorites, a combination of old and new, in his characteristic fashion, slowly, gently and with long pauses. It was a completely different style, but strangely effective, and I fell in love with several of his choices.

We began by meeting in college rooms, teashops and coffee houses, but, since I lived next door to the college, my apartment became our default space. The apartment had two large terraces, one with a convenient awning, and we would sit and talk after college until the sun went down.
​
At that time Kamal lived in a suburban house, far from the college, where his father practiced medicine. The situation changed dramatically when his father died very young, and his grandfather, a famous physicist, invited Kamal’s mother, Nilima, to move into his large house in town, fairly close to the college. We now started seeing each other daily after college, often at his grandfather’s -- and now his -- home, and sometimes I even stayed back at his place. I loved sitting with him after dinner, drinking tea and talking about our life and loves.

Kamal was a most unusual person. He combined disparate elements to an extraordinary degree. He was a social person, cordial to people he met. In fact, mostly he left them charmed. Yet he was highly intuitive, and if he sensed someone as overbearing, he would leave the scene without a word.

An aspect that bowled me over was his extraordinary candor. Five of us friends were discussing the most memorable incident in our lives in a street-side café. The rest of us talked about some curious event, but Kamal talked about a most intimate occurrence and put us all to shame with our lack of self-disclosure. At the same time, I knew he could be cautious and guarded with people he instinctively distrusted.

On one occasion I had invited him to a small gathering. He did not come. The striking thing was that when I asked him about it, instead of prevaricating he told me, simply and truthfully, that he had not felt like joining. I accepted that instantly. He could also be preternaturally sensitive to his environment. We dined with friends in an excellent Chinese restaurant one day, when Kamal came over to tell me that the scarlet wall color overwhelmed him. We moved to another room.

From the university I went to work for a corporate organization, while Kamal joined India’s reputed public administration service.  He took his work as a mission and rose in the ranks until he was a very senior member of the giant Indian railway system. I lived in another country and traveled constantly. We rarely saw much of each other, though we always kept in touch.

Two years ago I walked into a college reunion and found him sitting with friends at a table, sipping tea as usual. The afternoon sun glistened on his hair, now touched with silver, as he spoke softly, his palm turned the familiar way, his lips carrying his trademark half-smile.
​
That is the picture I will live with now of my friend. Kamal died last week of a definitive cardiac failure.

​I was helping a friend clean a recently vacated rental apartment when I found a small diary without a name. It did not belong to the previous tenant, or anybody else we could think of. Before destroying it, I transcribed a couple of pages in the third person, shedding references to protect privacy. It sounded like the story of many I know.
……………………..

At the back of his mind he knew it was coming, but that is where he chose to push it down: at the back of his mind. The affair was coming to an end, the tell-tale signs of her disinterest were growing, but he resolutely clung to past memories and the few remaining vestiges of her attachment.

Then she delivered the coup de grace in her typical way, softly but firmly. She did not want to see him anymore. The way she put it was: it would be better, she felt, if they did not meet for a while.

He was disoriented or foolish enough to ask if she knew what this meant for him, only to evoke the response that she surmised it would be unpleasant for him. Unpleasant! Didn’t she know that it would devastate him? But the phrasing itself told him that it was all over; nothing at all was left. He ended the call.

The agony started and continued. The only person he could share it with had abandoned him. He was left to grovel in his grief all by himself.

He did not know how to deal with it, for it was a new experience for him. He had had relationships, and some did not last. This was the first time a relationship had grown and flourished, the other person had known him closely for a long time, and then decided it wasn’t worth continuing it. It was a rejection that could not be more complete.
​
Perhaps, it was just hubris, he said to himself, a sense of wounded pride that he had to now overcome. But, he quickly realized, that wasn’t what was hurting him the most. Rather it was wrecking of something good they had built together, over a long period. It was now in pieces.

Again, it was broken because she had chosen to break it. That probably meant what they had built did not seem so good to her.  She was ready to let go of it. True, but it was also true that she had long continued with it, no doubt because she thought well of it. He well remembered the time when – it wasn’t intoxicating only for him to meet her – she had clearly shown and said how important, how addictive it was for her.

Was it then a function of time? What had started and unfolded for a while as a good thing, had eventually soured in her mind? Something had imperceptibly sprouted in the relationship that had smothered the magic of the relationship? He recalled that in their last talk she had mentioned, in her typical self-effacing way, that it was a loss for her too.

A loss? A loss, he thought sadly, that she seemed quite willing to accept. No negotiation, no effort to change something on either part, no readiness to make an effort to retrieve or preserve what was good in the relationship.

Maybe she thought it was irretrievable. It could not be salvaged as something that could be pleasing to us both. It would be a poor facsimile of what we had wanted our relationship to be.

Within, he felt a strong unreasonable urge to share one last word with her. To tell her what she meant to him, to express the enormity of his loss. He knew that would be futile. It would be just as futile to ask for a resumption that she had already decided was futile. There was really nothing left to say.
​
It was sad that after crossing virtually oceans of indifference and unfamiliarity, they had built a relationship and exchanged thousands of words, but now there was not a word they could say meaningfully to one another. Not a word. Not a single word.

Serge came to see my father with a recommendation letter from an old college mate in another town. He had found a job with a tea company in our town and needed to quickly locate an affordable place to stay.
​
We lived in a large third-floor apartment in an old but well-preserved building. An additional room on one side served as a guest room, used by our occasional overseas guests. Clearly father took a shine to Serge, for he brought him along to meet the family.
​
The reason became clear presently. Father was considering letting him use the guest room, because he could not think readily of an alternative for one thing and, for another, nobody was going to use the room anyway for some months yet. Since a stranger would be living so close to us, father thought mother and I should get to see him first.

Serge was a lean, handsome man, with a dark shock of hair, neatly brushed back, and a light, well-trimmed moustache. He had a soft, well-modulated voice and a winning smile. Mother was usually circumspect and took time to make up her mind about a person, but she broke the rule for Serge. She started asking him what she could do to make his stay comfortable. Serge graciously replied that the accommodation itself was a great favor and he could not think of anything else to ask for. Instead, he said, he would like to be useful to the family in any way mother could think of.

Serge moved in the next day and within a week became a seamless part of our family. Father simply took him like a person who had always been there, and mother, uncharacteristically, would ask him to do an odd thing or two for her. The biggest change was in my life. It was a quantum difference to have an older, friendly person right next to me, who could answer all questions, seemingly solve all problems and was ever present to help me or to give me company. He became my ally and model, my admired mentor.

Then, I don’t know how, he also became my friend. There was little I couldn’t tell him. There was nothing I didn’t.
​
In summer our family went for our annual vacation in another town for a month. It was a time for relaxation and outings.This year, however, it was cut short after just three weeks by an urgent call from the police. We returned to a house that – not only had a cop outside and a detective inside – was topsy-turvy in every room. Someone had systematically searched every nook and cranny for anything of value. Everything valuable was gone. The small box in which mother kept her jewelry was on the floor, broken and empty.

Then Dubey, the wiry, tight-lipped detective, took my parents aside for a detailed discussion. I could overhear his repeated questions about who could be suspected and who could have accessed the key. I heard father say that he had no suspect among the neighbors and, though he had left a duplicate key with Serge, he was above suspicion as a virtual member of the family.

It was a dismal time for us all, and Serge turned very gloomy and taciturn. I did not know whether it was in sympathy for us or a result of the hour-long interview Dubey had with him. I was sad that he hardly talked with me – or with anybody else for that matter.

The climax came on the fourth day. The evening before Serge had gone out shortly after dinner, saying he was going for a walk, and had not returned. Dubey arrived midday with his Inspector and two other cops. Bluntly he told father and mother that they were fools to trust Serge, whom they had now come to arrest.

Dubey had the broken house lock checked by a specialist who had concluded that it wasn’t broken at all; it had been opened normally with a key and then deliberately mutilated to give the impression that a burglar had broken it. Dubey had checked all the references given by Serge, and found them false; he had never worked for a tea company. Dubey’s men had tracked down two of Serge’s past employers who had both sacked him, one for defalcation of funds. Serge was, Dubey said, just a grifter, a con artist who preyed on gullible people like my parents.

But Serge was nowhere to be found. He was never caught, arrested or prosecuted. Probably he pursued his artistry in another town under a different name.
​
The detective’s attribution of gullibility rang in my ears for many days, if only because it was so misdirected. Surely the most gullible was a young boy who had loved and trusted Serge and put his heart in a friendship that was just a mirage.

Whether Donna was the prettiest woman of our college nobody cared: she was certainly the most eye-catching. With her stunning body, long tresses and those incredible, sparkling eyes, she cut a broad swath through all the male hearts. If she went to a party, we tripped over each other to get there fast; if she joined a seminar, we left everything to sign up, for the merest chance of getting a few minutes with her.

So I felt very lucky when my professor asked me to serve on a student council, and, at the first meeting, I found myself sitting next to Donna, sent by another professor. She amazed us all. She was ingenious and on every occasion came up with more ideas than we could deal with. She was indefatigable, ready for hours of free work to put those ideas to work for the community.
​
What took me longer to realize was that her real strength was how she dealt with all the people she attracted so effortlessly. She was not just pleasant and considerate; she paid extraordinary heed to others and always found time to hear them or be helpful.

I enjoyed working with her, and for many years after college, kept in touch with her even as I worked overseas. She went to medical school, worked in a hospital as a pediatrician, married, became a widow hardly three years later, and, her last letter said, she was taking an assignment in Burkina Faso.

I made a few quick switches in my assignments abroad, and my letters to Donna were returned. We lost touch. An old college friend told me that she had become well known in her field and traveled to poor countries for experimental work on children’s diseases.  She had, he said, created a foundation for the purpose and put her life’s saving in it.

Thirty years later, I was on a short visit to Dominican Republic, and went to visit a friend in the local hospital. I might have passed the nurses’ station if I had not heard a familiar mellifluous voice that had once meant a lot to me. I turned to look at the doctor: a silver haired woman in a white coat, the stethoscope round her neck and a file in her hand, and a set of memorable sparkling eyes.
​
I held her hand as I looked at them, now radiant with recognition and joy. She was, as ever, truly a beauty.

I had a bad case of food poisoning, several bouts of vomiting followed by stomach cramps. So a friend took pity and took me to a large local hospital. I was in agony and needed urgent help. So he took me to the Emergency Department.
 
The fact that the nurse was in a closed glass case and didn’t even look up told me I had to help myself. I registered myself at a kiosk with my driving permit.
 
Then I waited. And waited and waited. Full five hours. In firm upright chairs, the only kind that was available in the waiting room. Clearly the hospital doesn’t want its patients to slack or droop or be unduly comfortable.
 
The waiting was interrupted by three brief intrusions. First, a nurse recorded my name, address and birthday. Probably she didn’t record these properly because three more people later asked the identical questions. Then she asked my height, weight and complaint. Earlier they used to check your height and weight; now they thoughtfully take you on trust, reducing their own chore.
 
Second, a clerk made me sign a sheaf of papers, presumably to make sure of my financial obligation and the hospital’s exemption from any liability for mistreatment. The clerk was too hurried to explain and I was too sick to pay attention.
 
Then a paramedic took blood samples for tests. Usually this takes five or ten minutes. This time it took four insertions and thirty minutes. The paramedic was visibly uncertain, almost nervous, and the explanation may have been that he had started work – he told me – just two months ago.
 
A fourth person came with a gurney to take me for a CT scan. When I wanted to know the reason for the expensive procedure, he simply wrote down “Refused” in his papers and departed without another word.
 
Finally, after five hours, I was admitted into the inner sanctum and found a bed. A nurse geared me to a IV fluid contraption and left, presumably in search of a doctor.
 
The well-awaited doctor appeared after thirty minutes, quickly perused the blood report and pronounced the indices normal. He said I “looked good” but he would prescribe some medicines in case I needed them. He also said a CT scan wasn’t needed at all. Just then his mobile rang and he rushed out to take the call.
 
Again I waited and waited. The doctor did not return, nor did the nurse. I desperately needed to go to restroom, but was stuck to the IV machine. I frantically yelled and a passing nurse came in to relieve me and let me relieve myself just in time.
I had had enough of waiting. I started marching up and down the corridor in search of the missing nurse and doctor.
 
At last I found the doctor, who pleaded a “long, troublesome” call. It is possible that even good doctors have irate girlfriends. I told him I had had the Waiting Cure – he didn’t demur – and now wanted to go home, if only I had the promised prescription.
 
I came out after another twenty minutes of waiting, with a prescription I never used and a bill for $4200. The big sign outside the hospital, Emergency, seemed glowing in the dark with an ironic message.

It has something to do with movement. When we travel, we discover new things.
​
It was a modest trip, just twenty miles from my suburban home to downtown Washington in my car. Georgetown Pike, despite its grandiose name, is a narrow, winding two-lane road, but it holds my fancy for it runs through pretty Virginia countryside. Without the possibility of lane change, the pace set by the slowest commuter, I can drive steadily if slowly and mull peaceful thoughts.

Then, suddenly, the serpentine coil of traffic stopped moving. Breakdown or accident, the drivers had nowhere to go. I rolled the window down, stretched my neck, but could see nothing of what lay ahead. The cars in the opposite lane stood still too, though I had seen no problem while coming.
​
I settled down for an indefinite wait. I looked at the stucco house, the pizza place, the evergreens, the stray dog. Then I looked at the man sitting in the car in the opposite lane.

A middle-aged, middle-built indistinguishable man, clean shaven, with thinned hair and rimless glasses, he sat in his car with an air of resignation. For a second he rolled down the window, just as I had done, stretched his neck to see what was ahead, and then settled down, realizing there was nothing to be seen. Like me, he seemed to be mentally preparing for an indefinite wait.

With nothing better to do, I decided to give him a name. Not John Doe; he did not look like a John. From what I could see, he had a slightly swarthy complexion. He could be Hispanic. I settled on Juan Diaz. Short and simple, like my name.

Juan came, let us say, from Ecuador. I have never been there, but I knew a pleasant person, a photographer Maria, from there. An Ecuadorian, he came to the US as a young student and has been here – given how accustomed he seems to life here – twenty years, I guessed.

I decided to give him a family too. Foreign born he may be, but given his very American bearing, I chose a Caucasian wife. Ciara, from Tiperary, Ireland. Ah, since that is the name of a saint, it should please Juan’s mother. My mother passed away some years ago, but I still miss her; so I preferred to let Juan have his mother, 81, living with him. So thoughtful of him, for his father died some years ago, and his mother did not enjoy living solo in Quito.

Juan and Ciara have a son in college and a daughter in school. The daughter is the apple of his eye, but the son has recently started causing some worry. He is spending a lot of time with a couple of friends who seem rather too boisterous to Juan. Ciara is unconcerned and thinks it is a passing phase, but Juan has reservations. I have two daughters, but felt Juan might be more traditional and want a son as well as a daughter.
​
What does Juan do? He works in an office, like many of us. What office? I am not sure, and I don’t have to be sure. This being Washington, I am comfortable placing him in a middling government agency, that looks after, say, Ocean Depth Exploration Safety Standards. Quite possibly he is an experienced engineer to whom the profundities of a sea reveal their valued secrets.

I stopped suddenly in my tracks. What was I doing? I was creating a parallel life with a charming twist. The man in the car in the opposite lane was just another me with marginal differences.

When I sit in a car and drive – or even when I walk – all I pass by are objects: houses, trees, cars. Even the people who walk by or people who drive those cars. They are all objects who can stand aside or go in their lanes and let me proceed with my life, without creating a single hindrance. Let them stand in my way, create the slightest problem, and I would curse them, at least in my mind, wish them cast aside and wonder why life should clutter my way with such fools.

It is a small step from this to think of others as just bothersome or worse, schemers or scammers. It does not matter if they become homeless, get beaten by the police, or thrown like refuse, without legal help, into a pitiless prison.

As I sat in my car, unable to move, an ‘object’ in another car miraculously transformed into another human being, not very different from me. Inexplicably, scores of Juans and Ciaras, sitting in scores of cars took on a human aspect, with a whole train of history and memories, with parents and children, jobs and homes, achievements and failures, and also plans and hopes and a thousand dreams – all like me, all exactly like me. They seemed to start touching me with invisible fingers, letting me be a minuscule part of a giant human community.

Then an unseen cop blew a whistle, first one and then the other long queue started moving, and Juan moved quickly out of sight.
​
I restarted the car and went back to driving, among other cars and other objects.