Downtown Hints of Mortality

The other day I was walking up Talaat Harb mid-morning when I caught this scent, a very sweet, early nineties-smelling cologne, lots of it. I quickly determined the source--a middle-aged man in a suit, walking briskly before me and carrying a gift-wrapped dessert-platter (permed ribbons and the works). The sun shone and the air was cool and I inhaled for as long as I could, overwhelmed by the ecstasy of it all. I felt alive and followed him fast, darting through pedestrians and hanging desperately to his saccharine wake like the shameless fiend I am. Then out of nowhere I heard myself address him, 'you might die just like that and I'll still be here'. Of course, it followed that 'wow, I'm also going to die any moment, and this'll remain without me either'. I stopped walking and, just as randomly, stuck my head into an apartment building, scanning the aged and elegant brass plaques and nameplates that lined the entrance, marvelling from the bottom of my heart at my sheer insignificance.