The hundreds, the thousands, the tens of thousands, the million billion trillion people that flowed around a singular child, a fawn in the midst of indifferent predators, blank faces, or—more repugnant—ignorant faces, men and women, young and old, people of an assimilated culture raging with helplessness more stupendously weak than the child that as such was ignored, left alone, eyes yet growing wide with realization that there was no soft hand to anchor the self to, no smile to greet, no leg to wrap one’s arms around, no maternal voice to sweeten one’s ears, no tens or hundreds of points of comfort that barricaded off that swell of pure emotion a child was painfully capable of.

Fear.

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The wood-plank walls seemed to reflect none of the dim orange light as the sun itself dipped below the horizon. Thick clouds of cigar smoke pockmarked the barroom air, drifting lazily around their owners, themselves leisurely arranged around the room in forest-green booth seats with their men of business and their women of pleasure. Though divided, each group of suited men reflected one another, revealed how fundamentally similar they all were. The look in their eyes, these pasty old men and their decrepit culture, and the clench in their hands said nothing of the flair and royalty each and every one believed themselves to have achieved. They were relics, not in the sense of a new generation’s rise but in the very simple fact that from the glare of their eyes was primal fear as they watched their miserable end walk into the room by the front door.

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