Today, though, after the trip to the ocean, he has little heart for the job, for the inevitable encounter with Jory. Even after the bus has pulled away Vaniok stands a few feet from where he disembarked, watching a mass of jean-clad students flow past a professor shambling along in rumpled corduroy. Not far away a quick-stepping woman darts across the street, her head cocked to a cell phone; and when the traffic fills in behind her, a hairy-armed man in the white outfit of a cook dances in place, waiting for his chance to cross. The whole world is in motion and it’s only Vaniok who’s still. He can’t help feeling it’s Jory who’s separated him from those others. “Excuse me.” A bearded young man bent under a backpack brushes against him and Vaniok’s instinctive step starts him walking. A bicyclist passes and he vaguely remembers his encounter with the priest not long ago. Father … what?… Tom, was it? He’s probably on his way to work too, off to some chapel. Vaniok looks at his watch: he’s early, of course, and it strikes him that he’s under no obligation to get to the warehouse before most of the others.
