I run without turning my head. Under the brown fog of a winter dawn, a crowd moves over the square. Each man fixes his eyes before his feet. There is constant movement up and down the sidewalk. I let myself go with the movement of the crowd, caught in a vortex of legs and faces, mechanical movements, bent backs, hands clasping objects.
Buses move off, engines snarling, horns sounding a brief fanfare.
They are painted white and blue, with rows of windows, shiny chrome fittings, headlamps and big fat tires with zigzag treads. When a bus stops, men and women surge for the door and crowd inside. The pallid faces strain upward, eyes anxious. A man wearing a beret, a man in a suit, a fat woman with sunken eyes, a thin, gray-haired woman, a woman wearing glasses, a young boy in black uniform. Inside the bus, some passengers look out the window.