Unacknowledged in the Underpass
Note how this smart and intelligent young woman doesn’t even bother to acknowledge me in the dirty underpass. She carries on chatting to her boyfriend on her phone in Chinese high above me as she almost-subsconsciously shoves her sneakered for beneath my confined humble head for kissing. Even when she finishes her call she remains engrossed in the contents of her phone as she turns to walk away from me, again without acknowledging my lowly presence. That’s because I’m just a ‘thing’ – a lowly piece of street furniture that automatically kisses people’s dirty feet. I mean nothing to her – though her sneakers and socks now mean everything to me, having dominated my vista, and my sense of smell and taste, for the past couple of minutes or so. I shall never forget them – the sneakers and socks of a beautiful, cellphone-obsessed Asian girl. Truly it has been an honour for me to kiss-respect another man’s girlfriend’s sneakers out on the streets!