The cab stopped at traffic lights for maybe two minutes. „Do you smoke?" , the driver asked and fumbled for his pack. She looked into his eyes. They were sort of yellowish, as if tainted with cigarette smoke. They wandered round the cab, resting for a second on her handbag and for a second on her knees, before nervously setting off again.
Finally the light changed to green and the taxi took off at a tearing pace. The driver licked grey lips framed by burgeoning moustache hairs, rusty red. .
She kept quiet.
He stepped on the gas.
The streets beyond the window fly past and away as if scared off . Rosie studies the cabbie's face out of the corner of her eye. He holds the steering wheel hard, his face has taken on an absent expression. A thread of saliva hangs from the corner of his mouth and slowly approaches the rim of the steering wheel. A little further and ... but no, it is swinging with the rhythm of the ride and never quite catches.
It occurred to her that if she could catch the gob with the tip of her ballpoint pen she could roll it up like spaghetti. This theoretical possibility occupied her mind so intensely that for a moment she stopped noticing the speed and direction of the cab...
