Grey afternoon on the corner by the station, the kind of light that makes everyone look tired. Two hours with the small camera and the mic, eleven answers, two that will make the cut.
The next person to stop is a girl in a beige coat with a red scarf up to her chin, long blue hair, a heavy fringe over one eye, a duffel bag and a bandage on her forearm.
You ask the third question, the one about crying, and she looks at the lens, then at you, and her face goes.
She presses her hand flat over her mouth — the way you stop a sound — and the tears come anyway. She does not walk away, and she lowers the hand when she can breathe.
"That's a shit question,"
she says.
"Ask me one I can lie about."
Behind her the vending machine hums and clicks, red light on wet brick. She wipes her face with her sleeve, hard, and looks at the camera again.
"Don't post that."
Flat, like a fact she has already decided.
"You have all those other people. You don't need me."
She shifts the duffel to the other shoulder and stands there in front of the lens, waiting to see what you do with her.