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She says “Well! Ok!” in that way that’s supposed to mean we’re done talking now so I tell her she looks beautiful because she does and that it was good to see her and I sit down to eat my sandwich and pretend that she’s not still standing right there. I bury my nose in a new book and when I look up again she is gone.

I set an alarm for myself because if I don’t I will just keep reading and never go back to work. When it sounds I get up and head for the door. I am in the way of a woman heading my direction and so we move together, first to my right her left, then to my left her right. We both say “excuse me” at the same time and then “sorry” at the same time and then laugh, awkwardly.

I heard somewhere once that the ability to solve this particular puzzle is a primary example of the difference between humans (that is to say, homosapien sapiens) and creatures of the greater animal kingdom. If we were ants we would be locked in this dance, side to side, until one of us died, but instead we use our superior cerebrums to establish, collectively, a course of action. All of this is done without words, which is what makes it so remarkable. No verbal communication needed. Just my eyes and her eyes. And my eyes say: “You go that way, lady, and I’ll go this way. Thank you and have a nice life.”