Neighborhood Watch

Late last June a young tile-maker saw the corpse of her neighbor
from a bridge. It lay on what used to be graffiti-detailed railroad
tracks but is now a newly paved bike path that enabled people to ride
their bikes across the city. His hardened body lay crumpled like a
newspaper and his elbows stuck out awkwardly like chicken wings. His
clothes were scattered flatly around the bike path and the gravel
shoulders. The tile-maker didn't say anything to anyone about seeing
her dead neighbor in such a terrible position, but instead returned to
her work. Later an equally young reporter from a small rural town who
was writing for the city paper interviewed her. When the tile-maker was
asked why she had not reported finding the body but had instead
returned to making her tiles, she said, I was embarrassed for him.