The subway continues.
Off to one side of the subway car, a small man sits mumbling to himself. He is mumbling like a small sleeping pug dog chasing a cat merrily. The small man doesn’t normally mumble, but he wants to make sure he speaks right. He could speak better by mumbling to himself, as practice.
At the other side of the subway car a tall man paces back and forth at the length of three paces. Three paces is perfect. Not too little, not too much. The tall man and the small man have been on the subway for a while. The tall man worries they will not get to where they need to go. Or maybe they passed it. The tall man decides that they didn’t pass the spot to stop at and he just needs to wait.
After some time, the tall man finally sits down, a little frustrated. With one quick swipe of the hand, the tall man messes up his hair. A moment later he runs his hands through his hair to correct it. The small man sees this, so he stands up and walks over to sit down next to the tall man. The tall man puts on a face as if the old sea horse realized he was in an aquarium.
“I can see you’re a little frustrated pal…” consoles the small man.
“We should have seen the signal to get off. I do not understand why the directions could have included the street.”
“Look here… I’m speaking well, I can help!”
The tall man glances at the small man. If you could ever see a pug dog talking with a sea horse trapped in an aquarium, this would be it. The pug dog smiles and licks the aquarium which flabbergasts the sea horse. The small man did not lick the aquarium, because there was no aquarium to lick. How ever if there was one, he might of done it.
“There is a reason why I never shared with you what to look for.” the tall man concedes.
“Really? You don’t trust me?” says a despondent small man.
“No, no, of course I trust you” says a more despondent tall man. “It is just that the directions were so vague. ‘You will know it when you see it!’ said the boss.”
“Well, why didn’t you tell me that?”
“Tell you what, what the boss said? You might have gotten confused.”
“Nah, that’s impossible.”
“Oh really, and why is that?”
“It’s because I’m the smartest man I know!” proclaims the small man.
“Oh really. What smarts do you have?” questions the tall man.
“I handle customer relations in the shop” the small man says with pride. “One has to know how to handle people with care! People keep coming by the shop because I’m there to welcome them in and help them!”
“Okay” the tall man surrendurs albeit reluctantly. “We can watch for the signal together”
The tall and small men sit together and they watch attentively out the windows for any signal that will cause them to “know it when they see it”.
“What could it be that we need to look for?” questions the small man. “A large neon sign that says ‘Stop here!’?”
“No…”
“A large brick sign that says ‘You’ll know it when you see it’?”
“A large what?”
“A large brick sign.”
“There are no such things.”
“Are you sure?”
“Yes, I am sure”
“We just passed one a moment ago and a neon sign.” says the small man as he points out the window.
“Huh?” turns the tall man to look.
“Well they’re gone now.”
“What did they say?” the tall man interrogates in a near exclamatory tone.
The small man pauses, “I don’t remember…”.
The tall man frowns and looks forward. He pinches the bridge of his nose, then let goes of his nose to look out the window again.
“They weren’t it?” the small man apologizes.
“We will not know for sure. Let us keep looking.”