Yesterday, walking down Regent Street towards Piccadilly Circus, I spotted in my peripheral vision to the right a man who at first I thought had been taken ill. He looked pained, seemed to be losing his balance, as if some force had struck him. In the milliseconds it takes for us to absorb data, I noticed a woman a few yards away, who was obviously connected to him, and a possible storyline emerged. It seemed unambiguously the case that she had delivered some words to him, and the effect dealt him a mortal blow. 'I've met someone' maybe. Or 'I don't love you anymore'. Or 'I want to end it'. I hope I was mistaken, but I think not. They were in their twenties I should reckon; the age where love affairs seem inescapably tempestuous and sometimes a little violent. The hot and coldness of it all, the testing and the provocations. I felt deeply for him.
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