45

I was en route to a meeting, rehearsing the statements I had prepared, when I noticed B laying in an awkward position on the shoulder of the road. At first he looked to be asleep, but his eyes were open; they appeared to fix on me as I approached him, but rather like the eyes of a face on a poster, and for a moment I thought he was dead. It might have been appropriate to stop and help him, but I was already running behind schedule, and if I took on responsibility for B without public support I would have to bring him to the meeting with me, which would not look good at all. And where then? Paired with another I would forget the next destination I’d had in mind, and would have to defer to B to lead me through his own degrading orbit, not being able to break free of him until finally we returned to where we began.