The elderly lady that walks her grey poodle in the morning. The two kids that run school, ten feet ahead of their mother. The woman who always collapses her side mirror when she parks her car before having a cigarette and can of pepsi for breakfast as she walks to the Metro.
They are strangers that I see every day, and they’re almost like temporal landmarks. For instance, I know I’m late to work if the car with the collapsed mirrors is already parked.
Sometimes you hear about them secondhand, like the Korean on the Red Line that used to sing Christian Hymns in between stops, although I haven’t heard about him lately.
I never knew his schedule, either.