Pearl Earring (ex. 5 narrator in unfamiliar environment)

I hold the brown leather handbag at my knees so no one notices. There is little chance for anyone to notice my lack of a briefcase as the crowd hisses down the street. I am picked up by the current in a nondescript industrial park. Everyone is hushed and carrying briefcases.


The crowd funnels as we pass through a residential area between the industrial park and downtown. Men in penny loafers squeak over the Astro-Turf lining either side of the street. The women click alongside the grubby yellow paint splitting the street into lanes that had fallen into disuse. I am not sure where we were going, but the attitude is sober, intentional. I do not need to know. I look for friends in the throng when I have the chance, but everyone is wearing the standardized garment, so I cannot make out individuals.


There are no cars on the street or in the driveways. A telephone pole hosts an old campaign flyer: Be Inconspicuous! The edges have peeled away from the pole and turned a sour gray.


A human scent lifts from the bustle and leads us forward. I walk next to a man whose shoulder rubs against mine in a regular and pleasant cadence. The crowd shifts left to avoid a large, rusting vehicle on the right side of the street, and I feel the shape and contour of the man's bicep through his standardized garment. As the crowd readjusts toward the right, I notice that the woman to my right has on pearl earrings. Hardly anyone wears pearls anymore. The jewelry peeks through her cropped black hair as she bobs forward with determination. Her eyes flit sideward, enough to be conscious of me in her periphery. She jostles a few paces ahead, subtly pressing through other black bobs to escape my view.


The crowd makes a sharp right turn out of the deserted neighborhood and enters the green plastic tunnel. We step out, two by two, into the New Historical District. I had not been in the area since it was restructured. I remember my father taking me to see the buildings knocked down. They were actually atomized, but the city made a big show of it. They played a sound byte of crumbling steel beams as the simulated wrecking ball struck the buildings a delivered the charge necessary to break down the material. People smiled soundlessly and waved little gray flags as the buildings disappeared in the dusk.


I pass the foundations of the new buildings with the others and miss my father. Production had been halted on these years ago when the city diverted its funds to "global ventures." Up ahead, an aluminum structure swells out of the ground and into our path. I think I read somewhere that these were used as temporary workstations for the contracted city builders. As we approach, the two lines split around the circumference of the abandoned building.


We proceed, single file, along the metal edge. I cannot see the expression of the woman behind me, but I sense that she has noticed my lack of a briefcase. Her awareness ripples through the line in the quiet code of her stiffened walk, but no one breaks formation.


We near the far side of the aluminum mound where the lines appear to converge and vanish. When there are only fifteen people ahead of me, I can see the bobs and combovers disappearing into two more green tunnels, spiraling underground.


I wonder if this is the old sewer system. The air grows very thick and warm, and the scent of perspiring bodies becomes intolerable. It is difficult to breathe.


A man behind me clears his throat. He must have had a momentary lapse of attention. No one, of course, calls any attention to his misstep at the risk of our own conspicuousness.


I have forgotten about the task of breathing because the line has slowed and the tunnel grown even more silent. The women have changed into slippers to match the stealth of the penny loafers. I did not see them change because it is so dark, but I carefully remove my heels and walk on the cool, dusty plastic in my bare feet.


A soft light reaches up (or down) the passage. I can see flecks of something like ash in the black bob ahead of me. Suddenly, the whole line halts.