Pugnacity
There is a woman who spends all day reading. Day-in and day-out, she sits beside a sliding glass window with a paperback novel in her hands. She is old and her hands are wrinkled - her fingers are contracted in an acute form of arthritis that she’s suffered from most of her life, first becoming evident at an early age. From sunrise to sunset, she does not stir from her chair beside the glass. One day I approach her and say, “Look, I’ve finished writing my first book!” and she spits in my face.