The situation: we see each other five days a week but we never talk. like two diligent ants committed to our dull, programmed pre-conscious tasks we routinely park almost next to each other in the same featureless cul-de-sac when we drop our kids off at the elementary school. but, for all this, we work circumspectly but systematically to remain strangers. in the morning freshness, eye contact is scrupulously avoided and no bracing or cheery words, nor even manly nods, ever get exchanged. truly, we practice the indifference of robots. he walks by me as if, were you to stop him and unscrew the covering on one of his plastic eyeballs, you would uncover a large photosensitive cell and a few wires. and if you were to unscrew me?