The Nick of Time
A young woman with a bright red scarf slid a street map out from its sardine nest and flipped it over, intent on its back cover. She turned and bobbed away, head down and focussed. Everyone else stared into a phone, managing, almost magically, not to run into each other. Almost everyone else. Not the tall man carrying the brown leather briefcase. He had just appeared from around the corner. He stopped in front of the stand and perused. He selected a visitors map, looked it over, looked back again at the offerings of pamphlets and tapped his thigh absent-mindedly with it as he resumed his perusing.