She didn’t look at me. She didn’t need to.
Then I saw it: a single flash of neon pink in a doorway. flash on church street
A woman. She was leaning against the worn stone arch of a closed bookshop, smoking a cigarette with the kind of unhurried grace people only have when they’re waiting for nothing in particular. Her sari—electric fuchsia—caught the last drop of daylight sliding through the clouds. For one second, the whole gray street turned soft and warm. She didn’t look at me
I walked past. The flash faded. Church Street went back to its evening routine—damp, quiet, a little lonely. a little lonely.