they remind her of insects: hundreds of infinitesimal pinpoints scurrying out onto the pavement in a spill of muddled color. she watches the writhing packs with careful interest as they tail off from all directions to duck into an open door, a waiting cab, an alley just out of eyeline. afternoon foot-traffic.
if she concentrated, adrienne could skim certain thoughts—who was running late; whose morning went better than the others; who was hungry; who was tired. she could smell faint approximations of the autumn air, the sickly sweet undercurrent of food debris and rain-rotted greenery. sweat and cologne and artificial pine air freshener. nausea twists at her stomach and she pulls back from the window, smoothing her clammy palms along her thighs.
"what do you think they're talking about?" she said. her voice is not quite her own, tangling in itself as it rambled into the upward lift of a question. adrienne turns to regard the suited man, head softly canted.
black noir struck her as a funny name—redundant (and repetitive!)—in his suit and helmet, he reminded her of a soldier. a blunt instrument of force [but wasn't she, too, just that? albeit, wrapped in a softer package].
@spooksupe
