[Here are the first and second parts of this thread.]

I saw a beautiful young woman on the subway — the kind of beautiful that discourages any attempt to reach out to her conversationally, incidental or otherwise, with the understanding that any normally acceptable flaw in her personality, or rather any proof of her humanity, or even the fact that this glorious spectre could speak, would shatter the delicate shadow of a silkscreen of an impression that her good looks had created in my perception of the world.

And then I saw a baby bopping up and down on her lap.

And then I realized that about a year and a half ago, another man had appreciated her beauty, though far differently.