Feigning

As my four inch heels hit the train platform, I nearly swore. But to use abbreviations while saying that "D*@#. China is so hot right now" will be a grossly understated injustice.

I breathed deep but came out unsatisfied. The humidity and the sweltering heat combined had my lungs screaming out for more oxygen or, as my coffee mug-toting, semi-bald, high school physics teacher would say,"Ox-why-jen, kids." The air molecules were lethargic, weighed down by the sour odor of bodies pressed against each other to get to the front of the line.

An odd case of deja vu reminded me of a shower I took years ago. I had stripped down, kicking my swim suit to the corner, while stepping into my friend's new shower. Beside the colorful shampoo bottles, there was a neat row of buttons. I pressed one. The shower encirclement locked with a sound of definity. Another button. Water jetted out. Too hot. With shampoo in my eyes, I punched another button. Blasts of hot and cold hit me from all directions. The steam rose. My lungs strained as I groped for a way to unlock the showers. For a brief moment, my impulse was to press my lips against the seam of the shower doors, in hope for a faulty job, for a crack through which I could just suck air. But embarrassment, heightened by the vulnerability of my soapy nakedness, forced me away from kissing the shower wall and back to slamming buttons.

And it was that same socialized decorum that prevented me from yanking the cigarette away from the man who lit up right in front of me in a snaking taxi line. I already had a hard time breathing in the humidity and the smoke simply suffocated me. I coughed dramatically in protest. He turned around, looking at me appraisingly from the curve of my shoulders down to my santa red toes, and puffed his huff at my face, letting the lazy entrails of smoke entangle my hair and smother me with a cruel deliberateness.

I directed my intense glare at his unkempt, thinning strands of hair that hung on desperately to fading manhood. I mentally cursed all semi-bald men, who either rubbed balloons on your once-silky smooth long hair to demonstrate static electricity or shamelessly cut through the line just to end up in front of you, smoking up a factory and parading the fact that you were a pushover on two counts.

So channeling maximum dramatic charm, I raised my hand, palm outward, to my forehead, and pretended to faint.

When the people nearby gave him the looks, he disgustedly threw his cig down and grounded it with his black heel, all the while muttering about the trouble that women bring.