The Melancholy of Resistance

Think of them as Spirit voices. Emotions find attachments. I could feel her anxiety. She is me.
  

  At first, her practiced detachment was slightly offending—she clearly wouldn't stand to brush shoulders with any strange persons, and eye contact was to be strictly avoided except in the most extreme cases—then it all became very amusing. Not as boisterous and blundering as Hyacinth Bucket (pronounced Bouquet, if you please), but rather, she is a woman, as she recognizes herself, a lady, who, when travelling alone amongst coarse crowds, keeps a discreetly dignified exterior, while internally she  staves off her anxiety by keeping moral tabs on the senseless humanity around her. Her attempt to reserve a circle of defensive space around herself fails to keep away the broad back belonging to the broadcloth coat or the harried face and voice of the peasant woman. Her distress at the leering man, the noisy rabble, the lurching of the train, motivates an inner dialogue eventually driving her to high anxiety—the "attempted rape," the brutal beating in the darkened street, the failing electricity, no help forthcoming, and all she can do is run, run, run from her rumpled dignity, from strangers who assault with scent and sound, from her own gigantic fears.