"I just wanted to see them. All of them. Those faces that I pass day by day on the bustling street. The ones I see in the alleys with a cigarette lined in their fingers. The ones with deep creases in their face like a landscape eroded over thousands of years encapsulated all in one being. It made me jealous. That they've seen infinitely more than I had, yet they kept it to themselves. Every time I greeted them, I hoped they would just give in and tell me everything I wanted to know. I suppose I could have just asked them, but that would be rude, wouldn't it? What if they were on their way to work or they were waiting for someone and this mere question could upset them for days upon end? Even though I saw them in those same chairs and on the same sidewalks they walked every morning, I thought it too difficult to ask them any simple question at all. I even thought a simple 'good morning' might be pushing it. Still, I wanted to know everything. What they loved, who they loved, what their preference was for shoes on a windy day, all of it. Even the distaste that they felt in the world. What they hated, who they hated, what textures in their mouth they could not stand. Every person I passed had an entire library full of these answers, but I never checked to see if the door was unlocked."
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