Saturday, 05 January 2002 | Invisible

All of it was a strange coincidence, really. He was in the airport at the same time I was (although neither of us had planned it that way), but I never saw him. He was leaving, and I was picking up a friend. They met at the gate while I paced beneath them, searching.

***

I took four rolls of film today, of a wealthy semi-local mayor (a friendly guy who liked to pose with his cell phone and chuckle while quoting the Emancipation Proclamation), of antiques (heavy wooden furniture, porcelain dolls and costume jewelry), and of camera-shy kids (who either stared blankly at my camera even though their mothers suggested they look away, or who ran and clung to giant familiar legs, burying their faces in safe thighs, and then stealthily checking to see whether I'd disappeared).

Sometimes I wish I could be invisible.