Will get back to the next part of my story soon, trying to get the flow right. In the meantime, an interlude.
A sudden knock at the door interrupted my work yesterday. If I were to find these visitors were more Jehova's Witnesses, my plan was to cough on them, scream "Run! It's the Plague!", and slam the door.
I eyed the peekhole, the shrunken periscope of our high-rent birdhouse. In the viewer was a woman with short black hair, a tapping foot, and one of those familiar faces your brain can't place.
"What's the secret password?" I asked.
"Well darling, if I told you it wouldn't be a secret, now would it?" breathed a silk voice through the door cracks like perfume.
"Close enough. Where do I know you from?" I asked as I opened the door.
"It will come to you." she said, "I know you better than you know me. Are you going to invite me in?"
"Sure. Coffee? Cough drop? Morphine? Ice cream?"
"I am fine, thanks. There is something I must tell you. You may want to sit down, this could come as a shock." she said.
"I don't shock easily. Is this like a sock-on carpet shock, or like an old testament god obliterating peasants for sneaking glances at a comely milkmaid's ankles kind of shock?"
"It's nothing that extreme. I have been watching you. Your apartment runs a specialized service in this building. All the mirrors in the main bathrooms are 2-way, behind the mirror are wall-mounted swiveling cameras which pipe data out to a web server. Those with the URL pay a fee to watch the residents in secret."
"I make a lot of funny faces in front of that mirror, it can't be particularly sexy."
"Oh, everyone does that. People pick their noses, play air guitar, sing with imaginary microphones. It's all a part of the private persona. You get used to it. Those people who don't do something silly on their own from time to time are the ones you really have to worry about. So, are you surprised?" she asked.
"Not really, I have heard that if you see space between your fingernail and the mirror when you touch it then it is two way. I was just always too lazy to unscrew the giant thing and look behind it." I said.
"I wondered why you kept touching the mirror like ET. I'm Alice. I have spent a lot of time watching you from behind the glass in the last few months because I recognized you from a Halloween party from a few years ago."
That was it! She held out a hand and I shook it. Is shaking a woman's hand the right thing to do? There is no universal greeting. Kissing the outstretched hand might come across as skeevy. Sometimes it is all done in words or nods, sometimes mummified in clorox wipes and wrapped in plastic to fend off disease. Some people are huggers. Sometimes passing a bottle or smoke is the only greeting required. In Saudi Arabia where the personal space envelope is smaller, greetings are accompanied by hummus breath and ample bacteria. So, what do you prefer?
Alice fancied a handshake with eyes like a white queen glimmer on a mad tea party, and she asked me to go have coffee on Tuesday at the nonsense shop. Coffee should be fun, reflective if not enlightening, like exploring rabbit worm hole. Traffic is constant outside our house as a spring breeze unearths mud and trash across the landscape. Joggers breathe Starbucks fog, the lonely grow colder, lovers huddle in the beaten streets. Any aberrant new friends in your life lately?
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..but only if I sense that the person is open to it.. otherwise I'm a hand shaker. but i firmly believe in greeting with a hug and wished it was normal for our culture..any culture. Maybe some day.