

A surreal night began when a man walked onto the subway carrying a small coffin, taped shut. He sat down, nestling it upright between his legs where it reached the level of chin. Indeed, people need to transport coffins somehow, and public transit is an accessible choice.
In a story this would be a premonition of something. This being my life, I thought that was all it was to be.
Then I encountered Eva. An hour before midnight, on the walk home from the subway station, she nearly slipped on a patch of ice several steps ahead of me, then turned and waited for me to catch up.
She wore an ankle length golden brown fur coat and a matching brown-hued keffiyeh on her head. Her birdlike face was small, pale, thin, and wrinkled, and she peered at me with wide blue eyes.
Did she ever blink? Now I can’t remember.
“This dreadful ice! I was just telling those lovely folks about it—” she flung her hand in the direction of the corner store behind her—”They’re Chinese. Are you Chinese?” she turned to look at me, then a second later smiled widely, “Am I Chinese? No! I’m Scottish!” she declared. “By ancestry.”
Then she returned to the ice, continuing, “This reminds me of that dreadful year with all the ice. I fell and broke my foot right here.”
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