I find myself in need of a cleaning cassette for my mini-DV camera, so I drive to the Halifax Shopping Centre. It’s the first time I’ve left the house all day.

My car waits alone in a corner of the nighttime parking lot.

I shut off my brain and wander around the mall as a purely sensory organism. A purchase is made. Hamburgers are eaten.

A member of the cleaning staff walks around the food court, wiping down the same 15 tables over and over. I watch her eyeballs rotate around in their sockets.

When she walks past my table, she avoids looking at me but her lips move and she mouths the word “hi.”