Blindness
It is a peculiar sort of blindness; I’m not sure I can explain it. I cannot call it literal. Because it is not. It is nothing of the sort. What it is, rather, is the a willful refusal to see. Perhaps not a refusal to see—perhaps an elision of what one notices. And I admit, there are many things in the world I would rather not see. I would rather not see the quarreling couple in the corner, her forehead tense, oily, and edged in smoke, his hair parted and re-parted by his nervous fingers; I would rather not see the man in the cheap suit counting his change, then passing by the café; nor do I like to see the loathsome noisy souls, whose chatter cannot hide—whatever it is they are trying to hide, perhaps the sordid fact that they have nothing much to hide, that they are nothing much out of the ordinary, and this bothers them. As I said, I would rather not see such things—or not often, at any rate. But I think it obnoxious when the bus aims at the puddles, just to see the look on pedestrians’ faces. I mean, that’s just rude.