Korridorium

♫ Voy­age en car avec Que­neau ♫

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I enter the cor­ri­dor between the over­crowded rows of seats on the bus and will work my way to the plat­form at the back. There, I will spot a young nerd com­plain­ing to a pas­sen­ger about being elbowed, and I will be thor­oughly amused watch­ing how the guy sud­denly loses his nerve and slinks off to an empty seat. I will briefly mock the fact that the skinny-necked geek thinks it’s cool to have an AIDS rib­bon pinned upside down over the Nike swoosh on his cap, but then I’ll turn my thoughts to other things—perhaps even, while stand­ing with one hand in the hand strap above, flip­ping through my cur­rent com­mut­ing read, Exer­ci­ces de Style. Man­ner­is­tic bel­letris­tic etudes, I suspect—and I will find that sus­pi­cion con­firmed.

Later, I will have seen the freak again, watch­ing him as a col­league places a fin­ger on his chest and takes him to task. But since none of this is truly worth men­tion­ing, or even expe­ri­enc­ing, today I will let the bus pass me by and, for the sake of vari­ety, have made my way on foot to 5 rue Sébastien-Bot­tin.

Queneau’s Exer­cises in Style: