By Mahmud Rahman

WHEN Zakaria Brown neared the bend at Grand and Harrison, he noticed three people walking towards him. Closest to him, a dark-skinned woman with her hair locks splashed in purple fabric, a man in the middle, and another woman, the tallest of the three, flashing a dancer’s leg through a slit in her denim skirt. They were laughing about something. He stepped off the pavement to let them pass, and the woman next to him turned her head and said, ‘She thinks you’re cute.’
   Caught off-guard, he only managed to reply, ‘Thank you.’ Then he tossed into the air behind him, ‘So are you.’ His feet should have paused, but they kept on moving. A voice shouted out, ‘Thank you. I appreciate that.’ Still his feet kept moving. Zak’s mind raced through a dozen lines, it even ordered his feet to stop, but his mouth stayed shut and his feet kept on moving. If he could only control those feet, he would have turned around to see if he and the tall woman had anything in common beyond cuteness. But his feet kept moving.
   It was the man in the group that threw him. If it were just the women, he would have handled things better. But the man could have been involved with the women; Zak didn’t want to get into no mess. Their laughter had struck him as intimate, conspiratorial. Heck, here in the Bay Area, the man could have been involved with both the women. Zak certainly didn’t want a piece of that scene. The original remark, appearing to be an invite, could have been a taunt. He wasn’t willing to be an object of amusement.
   Truth be told, Zak’s eyes had been focused on the woman closest to him. She’s the one he found cute. She’s the one he meant when he said, ‘So are you.’ The tall one he really hadn’t seen beyond that wink of leg. He wasn’t wearing his glasses, and without 20-20 vision he didn’t want to take the chance that her face might not match the promise held out by that leg.
   
   But whom was he kidding?
   A hundred paces further, Zak approached the woman on the bench.
   As usual she was all decked out, today in a bright green satiny dress, and as he came near, her toenails looked freshly polished as if she’d dipped them in dark chocolate. She protected her face from the gleaming sun with a leopard-print umbrella in her right hand. Still cheered from the encounter at the bend, Zak smiled and said, ‘That’s a pretty umbrella.’ The woman looked right through him; her face didn’t register even a twitch.
   Living just two blocks away, Zak walked the three miles around the lake several times during the week. She was always there, on that same bench. He wondered if she’d taken out squatting rights to that spot.
   She did not appear to be suffering from want. She might have been homeless, but he could never be positive. She was always carefully groomed, clean, with blush on her cheeks and red lipstick on her mouth. She wore a blonde wig, the hair in pigtails. He never saw her act foolish, curse, or talk to herself. She simply sat there – ignoring the world go by. Now and then she smoked a cigarette. A menthol brand. She held her cigarette in a silver holder.
   In his walks, Zak ran across a handful of regulars. There was the mousy looking woman with a worried face, the lumbering giant with a torso that looked like it couldn’t possibly be supported by his pair of spindly legs below, the efficient Asian runner in sports bra and tiny shorts. With them, there would be a hi, a nod, or a simple meeting of the eyes. Just this morning before he’d come across the trio, he passed by the homeless man in army jacket who holds out an empty coffee cup with loose change. Zak had dropped him a five. He considered it his ‘lake tax’, a small payment in gratitude for living near such a lovely walk.
   The woman on the bench sat entirely mute, desiring neither contact nor recognition. If she’d wanted to be invisible, why plant herself on that busy stretch? There was no way for people to ignore her. Not the way she painted up her presence. Like that beggar’s cup ringing with coins, she made herself into an insistent statement. But what was the message she sought to make with that combination of silence and gaudiness?
   One time he saw her reading an old paperback that was falling apart. He’d turned around to inspect the cover of the book. He assumed it would be a romance, something light. That it was, but it wasn’t something girly. It seemed to be an adventure novel with a sailor and exotic ‘island woman’ on the cover.
   Zak had nodded at her, waved, tossed out pithy remarks like the one about the umbrella, but she never acknowledged him. If he was a poet or philosopher, he might have observed that her presence was An Indictment of Our Need for Social Connection. But he was no poet and the furthest thing from a philosopher. He was just an ordinary guy, a survivor of a marriage sweetly but mysteriously terminated after one year, a man who was content enough with his job at the library that most days he looked forward to going to work, a man who had accumulated a few friends with whom he could share drinks, shoot a game of pool, or go to the movies, a concert, or an occasional hike.
   Otherwise – simply a man in love with his best friend Lydia. Truth be excavated, that’s the real reason Zak didn’t retrace his steps backward for that tryst with cuteness.
   Zak unlocked the front door of his building and slowly climbed up the steps to his third-floor apartment. He needed to call Lydia.
   He knew that if he’d soaked in more of the Bay Area sensibility he saw in some of his colleagues, he might have been inclined to ponder deeper about ‘the woman on the bench’ and see in her a subject for art or an impulse to join some campaign against… well, against what? The woman didn’t easily lend herself to a cause. She bugged him, pulled at him for some reason, but thankfully he was saved from more by Lydia. Originally from Providence, with an East Coast bluntness in her, she’d met him at a librarians’ winter conference, pulled him out of Toledo after the end of his marriage, and she’d kept him afloat ever since. Mostly by keeping him laughing.
   After a shower he lounged back on his couch with a cup of tea. He rang Lydia and shared his encounter with the trio at the bend. She said he was a fool to turn down an invite like that. Had Reebok forgotten to put reverse gears in his shoes? Or did they spike the rubber with brains from an ass? He took the beating in good humour.
   Then she floored him. ‘You know, Zak, you give out a vibe that you don’t need anyone.’
   He protested instantly, hotly – demanded more. What was this vibe he supposedly gave out? She could give him no details. ‘You know, a vibe is hard to put into words. It’s just a feeling. You have this aura. You’ve always had it as long as I’ve known you.’
   For some weeks after that conversation Zak avoided the lake. When he returned, he could not find the woman on the bench. He came out more often, but she never showed herself again.
   Now others caught his eye. A beautiful young woman appeared, sitting on the low wall near the fancy new apartment building. A black, wheeled suitcase stood upright near her feet. She was only there for a couple of days – no doubt someone temporarily homeless. There was the man on the overhang near 14th Street who leaned against the railing staring at passers-by with menace in his bloodshot eyes. And across from the Catholic Church, a short guy kept flitting around on the grass, warning everyone. ‘Is that your car parked over there? They’ll ticket you now.’ He must have fancied himself as a modern-day Paul Revere.
   But they were all oddities, easily placed in some familiar slot. Long before he turned the key on his front door, he’d always forget about them. None could take the place of the woman on the bench.
   One day Lydia asked Zak if he’d be interested in going to an opening of an exhibition by a local photographer. He’d begged off from two previous suggestions, but he figured it was time he stopped avoiding her. He told himself, ‘You’re thirty-four years old, Zak. Time to be a grown up.’
   He arrived at the gallery at the time they’d agreed, but she wasn’t there. He waited outside for nearly half an hour, then decided to take a stroll inside. He wondered what could be taking her so long. She’d turned down his offer of a ride, choosing to take the BART and walk down from the 12th Street station. The gallery was in a deserted downtown block, and now Zak felt that he should have insisted. It was silly, of course. Lydia had lived in the area far longer than he; she was perfectly capable of moving around on her own. He chalked the anxiety down to some latent male instinct that dies hard.
   He was shaken out of his thoughts by a series of three photographs. There she was, the woman on the bench!
   The first photo appeared to have been shot from the ground up. The view moved from her feet up towards her face framed by a sky puffed up with rain clouds. The woman was laughing hysterically, her gap-tooth mouth wide open. Her hands held a cup of coffee or tea, with steam rising from the hot beverage. The picture was wildly colourful: black boots streaked with mud, mahogany-red woollen skirt, orange down jacket, shining caramel face, blond wig, grey sky with black clouds. She might have been laughing at the photographer taking his photo from her feet, but the picture made her look insane.
   The second photo was taken from one side, looking down at her. Beneath her head, she was entirely covered in a purple sleeping bag. Her face was turned away and all you could see of her was the blond wig. Resting on the bench on her side were two paper bags: one a brown grocery bag overflowing with clothes, the other a blue bag from The Gap containing many little bundles inside, some of cloth and others of plastic, all in different colours.
   The third picture was a close-up of her hand holding a cigarette in the silver holder. This photo was not taken from her usual bench but from a bus stop, probably along Lakeshore Avenue. Behind the hand on the back of the bench, you could see an ad for a rap group’s album, with angry faces shouting in rage. There were two silver rings on her fingers. The nails were trimmed and painted in pink. One nail, the one on her index finger, was black; the fingertip appeared to have been crushed.
   No doubt the photographer was drawn to the colours that enveloped this woman. What did they suggest to him? That she was, despite her unknown condition, full of life? Or did he mean to show her as crazy? Of course the gap between those two states might not be large. Zak recalled Daria’s face at that instant approaching climax when, her feet bent backward thumping against the headboard, the coils of her hair wildly strewn against the pillow, her face would shift from an image of extreme beauty into a terrifying ugliness. He had been relieved that nature had not allowed such a state to last more than a few seconds. The longer you exist in such a state, something inside must get scared, realise that it is unreasonable to enjoy so much… pleasure, then you return to normalcy and even the memory of that moment recedes. But what would happen if you could prolong that state?
   Zak needed to get some air. When he stepped outside, he saw Lydia turn the corner. Relief washed through him. They waved and as soon as she came up, he only accepted a cursory kiss before taking her hand and dragging her inside. ‘You have to see this!’
   ‘Sorry to be late, but what’s the emergency?’
   Standing before the three photos, he whispered, ‘Look!’
   ‘Oh, he took photos of Goldilocks,’ said Lydia. ‘That’s awesome.’
   Before he could ask her what she meant, they were both distracted by an animated conversation in progress next to the photo set. One man seemed to be the photographer and Zak would learn from the conversation that the other was a writer. Or at least someone who claimed to be one.
   ‘And what do you mean to suggest with this set?’
   ‘I am perfectly happy to leave that to the viewer.’
   ‘Don’t give me that. The viewer may ultimately decide, but you’ve carefully selected images and angles. You have something to say, so why play so coy?’
   ‘And in your case? Don’t your readers ultimately make up their minds about what you say in your stories?’
   ‘Yes, but I view my writing as a way of reducing that distance so that what the reader reads is very close to what I want to convey.’
   ‘You know, that’s such a problem with your stories. You leave so little work to the reader, so little to the imagination. But even after all that, how would you know how they interpret your stories?’
   ‘Well….’
   ‘You’ve seen this woman. What do you think I’m trying to say?’
   ‘I think the limitation of what you work with – images frozen in time – is that you cannot tell us much of anything about past or future, but only of the moment.’
   ‘That’s just bull. And you know it. If you look carefully, you can see….’
   ‘It seems to me, you’re celebrating this moment. You’re saying, look at this woman, she might be a homeless bag woman, but she’s oh so colourful. Among all your work here, this is the only set you’ve chosen to show in colour. And you have her laughing like a witch. How did you manage that anyway?’
   ‘I tickled her.’
   ‘You what?’
   A tall redheaded woman who’d come by during the exchange now turned around and glared at the men. Zak detected her nostrils flare. She seemed about to say something, but thought better of it, shook her head, and walked out of the gallery.
   The photographer whispered to his friend. ‘She actually believed me. This can be such an earnest town. Of course I didn’t tickle her. I told her a joke.’
   ‘Funny. I happen to agree with the point you’re making with her photos, but I think you’re missing the tragic dimension.’
   ‘And that would be what?’
   ‘The only hint you give is that crushed index finger. But you draw the viewer’s gaze to the silver cigarette holder.’
   ‘She could assume quite a classy pose with that. But let me turn the tables. If you were to write a story based on her, what would you do?’
   ‘As a matter of fact, I am working on something.’
   ‘You’ve spoken to her?’
   ‘Have you?’
   ‘Not any more than asking her permission and suggesting that she hold this or that pose. It was a bitch to get her to move to the bus stop for that last shot.’
   ‘I haven’t spoken to her. Speaking would defeat my purpose. She sparked something in me, a compulsion to give her a life.’
   ‘You mean you’re just going to wander off into that world of make-believe that’s your specialty. So tell me, what life have you made for her?’
   ‘I imagine her in her former lives: street walker, sporting house madam, fortune teller. She was once successful and had learned great style, but then a tragedy occurred. She was the fortune teller who told a young woman who had come to her that her life was going to deliciously turn around, that she would meet a fabulously rich man driving a fancy car. This girl got so excited that she darted out of her place with so much hope, only to dash into the intersection and fall under the wheels of a gold Mercedes Benz. She died pitifully, her death matching the pitiful life she’d had. The fortune teller, who did not usually emerge from her house during the day, could not sit still when she heard the commotion outside. She wandered into the crowd and witnessed life leaving the young girl. And no matter how much she tried to reason herself out of it, she couldn’t avoid falling into a deepening funk. She blamed herself, asking what right did she have to give this girl so much hope, far more than her pathetic condition could handle. How did she presume to give the girl a jump in life, a jump that only ended up as a leap to her death? The woman grew more and more listless, lost her house, and wandered into the streets. Eventually she found a shelter and a place to clean herself – even if they are whore’s baths that she takes – and then she arrived at this bench near where the accident took place.’
   ‘You imagine all this from what? Surely you need a little something from her to take off in this fanciful speculation.’
   ‘There’s your blindness. There is a very important clue I go by, and it is right there in your second photograph.’
   ‘Where?’
   ‘Look inside the bag with all those bundles. One of those bundles contains a tarot deck. I once saw her with a deck in her lap. She was methodically tearing up a card into tiny pieces.’
   ‘Well, well. But what of her present?’
   ‘Back story is my curiosity. I’ll leave you to focus on the present.’
   ‘As for the future?’
   ‘We can leave that to the gentleman who’s just stepped inside.’
   Zak and Lydia looked around and saw a priest approach them. He barely glanced at the pictures of the woman before moving on to an adjoining set that focused on people in poses of devotional ecstasy. Singers at a Holy Roller church; Catholic pilgrims climbing steps on their knees toward a cross on a hill; Hare Krishnas at a street corner. In each frame, the photos drew attention to a single individual with some mark of disability.
   Lydia whispered to Zak. ‘What copiers. This could come straight from an Apple ad.’
   ‘Copiers? Plural?’ asked Zak.
   As she led him away, she said, ‘That story the writer made up? It sounds like the end of a novel I read in college. These guys are just blowhards. Let’s get out of here.’
   He drove to their favourite Cambodian restaurant, and they settled in at a back table. The place was not crowded. They ordered beer with their food and after the waiter brought over their drinks, Zak asked Lydia, ‘How come you called her Goldilocks? The wig?’
   ‘Those pigtails? Come on, was she posing for a Swiss Miss commercial?’ She grinned, and Zak saw her brown eyes dance. ‘I didn’t come up with the name, though. I heard some other people call her that.’
   ‘She was a strange one. I don’t think we’ve ever talked about her before. What did you make of her?’
   ‘You don’t want to hear more about my rotten day at work?’ She feigned disappointment. ‘What’s with this obsession with Goldilocks? You getting a blonde itch?’
   ‘Very funny. Do I look like a gentleman?’
   ‘Stop.’ She held up her hand. ‘That’s way too old. You and your ancient movies. Back to your girlfriend. You know, I could never make out head or tails of anything she said.’
   ‘You spoke to her? She spoke to you?’
   ‘Yeah, once or twice. It was just gibberish.’
   ‘She spoke to you.’ He digested that. ‘What did she say?’
   ‘She simply repeated the same thing over and over. As if she had memorised something out of a book. I asked her what she meant, but she yelled at me, “Why is it so hard for everyone to understand? It was his SS Patna, he said. He was not sure if he jumped or if he was pushed. He said he would go back to find out. But he did not return.”’
   ‘God, everyone’s a fucking metafictionist. I’d have become one too, because I always wanted to ask her, who’s the Godot you’re waiting for? Why, just because she sat around on a fucking bench? Now it’s all clear. She was waiting for bloody Peter O’Toole. But then Goldilocks wore the wrong wig. She’s no fucking Daria, I mean, Daliah Lavi. That woman wore her hair black.’
   ‘You’ve lost me.’ She took a swig from the bottle. ‘Why are you so angry at her?’
   ‘Not her.’
   ‘Daria? Ohhh, I’m sorry, sweetie.’
   The waiter brought over their food and ladled out the rice. There was a clattering of spoons as they served themselves from the other plates. Zak forked a piece of shrimp into his mouth, washed it down with some beer, and said, ‘No, not her either.’
   ‘At them, those two in the gallery? They’re just pretentious assholes.’
   He shook his head.
   ‘Me?’ said Lydia, tentatively.
   He didn’t reply. His eyes on the table, he spooned some more food on his plate.
   ‘Me?’ Her voice firmer this time. She put down her fork and looked at him with disbelief.
   He looked straight into her eyes. ‘Lydia, how long have we known each other? Two, three years? How come you never told me earlier?’
   ‘Told you what?’
   ‘About this vibe I have that I don’t need anyone.’
   ‘Oh.’ She said in a raspy voice, ‘That’s what you’re upset about? All these weeks?’
   He nodded. ‘That, and how come she spoke to you and never even acknowledged my existence.’
   ‘Who?’
   ‘Goldilocks,’ he said sheepishly.
   Her eyes brightened. ‘Honey, that’s Toledo in you speaking. We’re in the big city now.’
   ‘Don’t act like you’re from New York. How do you….?’
   ‘It’s not the time to talk about how the girl from Providence adapted, okay? Let’s get back to what you were saying.’
   ‘I just don’t understand how you think this way about me.’
   ‘And I can’t believe you’re making so much of it. It’s not that big a deal. There’s just this thing you give off, that all’s in perfect order with your life, that we’re all people you could have around, or dispense with. Just accessories.’
   ‘Accessories?’ Zak’s voice rose slightly. ‘How can you say that? You’re my best friend.’
   ‘I’m sorry, that wasn’t the right word.’
   ‘It certainly was. What people say in heat is often the closest thing to what they mean. The rest is all sanitised. Come on, don’t try to make me feel better. Just tell me the truth.’
   ‘Fine, then. That’s how I see it. You’ve never let me know that I mean something to you beyond someone whose company you enjoy. I can be funny, and you’re my laugh track. Is there anything more?’
   ‘Lydia, I can’t believe what you’re saying. Don’t you know what you mean to me? I never wanted to come off as a whining ball of need.’
   ‘Maybe you pushed it too hard. You….’
   ‘It’s not easy, you know.’ He slowed down. ‘Especially when one person’s in love with the other.’ There, he’d done it. Now her brain would go into overdrive, looking for the exit. Her eyes were already darting towards the door. Run, Lydia, run.
   But all she did was stand up and say, ‘Give me a minute.’ She grabbed her purse and walked back to the restroom. Zak’s eyes followed her, taking in the roll of her rounded hips as she moved, the tilt of her head with the long brown hair that could be gloriously curly if she’d let it alone but which she insisted on fighting despite him, and no doubt others, telling her she looked perfect in them. ‘Too much of a hassle,’ she would justify. He watched her return, her legs in black pants coming forward in a graceful stride, her hand clutching her black purse against the bright white top, her golden brown face, neck, and arms radiating in the soft light, a mischievous smile on her lips. Or was that a smirk?
   When she sat down, she said softly, ‘Damn you. You never breathed a word.’
   ‘When did you ever give me a chance? From the beginning, you made me a bhaiya.’
   ‘A what? You’re not accusing me of cutting off your balls or something?’ She pursed her mouth. He noticed she had freshened her lip gloss, a shade of plum.
   ‘Something my Bangladeshi uncle told me. It means a brother. You turned me into a brother. You subjected me to every detail of your dating life, who could kiss, who couldn’t, who you came with and who you didn’t.’
   ‘Eee-you. I wouldn’t talk about such things with my brother. What kind of brothers do they have over there?’
   ‘Every time we met, there was someone new in your life, someone who you were excited by, or someone who’d turned out to simply be another man.’
   ‘There weren’t that many.’
   ‘My uncle told me that when a woman wants to turn away a man’s romantic approaches, she can take a pre-emptive step and make him a bhaiya. It’s a pretty neat trick. One that should find use everywhere when women have to deal with men who come bearing words of friendship but hoard something else inside.’
   ‘And in your case, you hoarded? Always?’
   ‘I was attracted to you right off, but I couldn’t admit it then. I didn’t want to burden you with my mess. You can remember how I was, daily imagining new plot lines about why Daria walked out without explanation. It wouldn’t have been fair. But all along, I had no doubt.’
   ‘Wow. I had no idea.’ She looked towards the kitchen and motioned to a waiter. ‘Can I get another Angkor? Two?’
   ‘Two.’
   They didn’t speak of it much more that evening. Instead they detoured towards uncomplicated terrain. They gossiped about characters that had come into their libraries. He brought up an Italian spaghetti western he’d watched recently, and when he was describing the story, she suddenly remembered the novel that the writer in the gallery had stolen from. And then it was time to go. The waiters looked sleepy. The restaurant had emptied out.
   He drove her home to her apartment in El Cerrito. On the way they were both silent. When they arrived outside her place, the street all deserted in this bedroom suburb that went to sleep early, he turned off the engine, unlatched his seatbelt, got out of the car and walked over to her side to let her out. She’d dozed in the car so she needed his hand to step out. She shut the door behind her and leaned slightly back against it. Holding out her arms, she drew him close. She brought his head towards her face and kissed his lips. He kissed back, not like he usually did with just a soft, quick pressure, but harder. Her eyes widened in surprise, then she opened her lips to let his tongue enter. A car sped past behind them.
   They stayed like that, exploring, his body melted into hers, until she gently pressed him away. She said she was getting chilly. ‘I’ll call you tomorrow evening,’ she said and walked up the steps to her front door. Zak stayed there in the empty street until she’d gone in, looked back, waved and closed her door.
   The next day was a Friday and Zak called in sick, his emotions having been in constant battle all night. One moment he was thrilled, the next caught in panic that he would lose Lydia entirely.
   He hadn’t felt like this since Toledo. Though the fog hovered over the neighbourhood, he decided that perhaps it would help if he spent the day lakeside, with other scenes occupying his mind. He packed a small backpack with water and fruit, quickly chose a book, and headed out.
   When he approached the bend at Grand and Harrison, he noticed three people up ahead, their backs to him. Two women, a man in the middle. They were all about the same height, and in the morning’s cool weather, all three were wrapped in sweaters or jackets.
   He squeezed past the woman on the left, stepping off the pavement. He heard her say, ‘Excuse me is a worrrd.’ Her voice was harsh.
   Zak would normally be inclined to ignore such a remark. After all, he hadn’t bumped her; the edge of his sweatshirt had barely brushed her arm. But something came over him. He wondered, what would Lydia do in a situation like this. He swivelled around, burst into a laugh, and said, ‘Ha, actually it’s two words.’
   The woman scowled. In no mood for jest, she yelled out, ‘Then u-s-e them.’
   ‘Well, excuse me!’ Zak replied as he bounded forward with a spring in his step.
   A hundred paces in front, the bench was empty. Zak sat down, taking off his backpack and placing it beside him. He fished out the book and opened the pages as the trio passed by a few moments later. The woman on the left glowered, but the others smiled at him. Zak looked back through them all, his face expressionless.
   So this was how the woman used to do it. He was curious to see how long he could maintain such a pose. He would plant himself on that bench for the entire day, unconcerned by the life around him. He drowned himself into the book. When he got hungry, he munched on an apple. Now and then he looked out to the water; it was calm, undisturbed. Gulls and pigeons flew past, and once a pelican dove straight down into the lake. When Zak felt thirsty, he chugged from his water bottle. Many walked and jogged in front of him, and, without his glasses, he only registered them as blurs, shadows and ghosts.
   He was glad he had brought a sci-fi novel. It transported him to a distant galaxy, and Zak found himself engrossed in the conflicts of entire species. He even created a planet from his own imagination, naming it Melancholonia, an empty planet populated by a colonizing species infected with the blues. But after a while the panoramic views and weighty ideas overwhelmed him; they took him too far out of his body. He was relieved when he finally came across a scene that whipped him back to last night.
   He relived the memory of the kiss. The word that kept coming back to him was ‘sweet’. He’d wanted to prolong it, with the anticipation of it turning into something more charged. With all that accumulated heat, he had craved a more erotic sensation. But before he could get beyond sweet, it was over. That feeling had mystified him as he drove home. He wondered if the kiss fell short because by initiating it, he had introduced an element of pressure – a tiny element to be sure, but still present. And this slight force, did it evoke a fully voluntary response or had Lydia only returned him a mercy kiss? Could it be that they had become so comfortable with each other that the molecules of their bodies could easily mingle but fail to create a spark? He would know more soon enough; it was silly to dissect the kiss over and over and over again. But his mind would not still.
   Around noon, the sun burned through the fog, and the warmth on his arms and face forced Zak to emerge out of his other worlds. He looked up and opened his eyes to the fullness of the scene around him. As she approached, the thin Asian runner said hi. Zak thought he spotted puzzlement in her eyes. He knew he had vaguely noticed her go by once already; maybe she was surprised to still see him planted there. Zak could not sit like stone. He returned the greeting – placing himself firmly within the web of humanity. There was no way he would allow himself to become, in anyone’s mind, ‘the man on the bench’.