Publisher's Synopsis
I noticed the girl, unimpressive and sad. Her clothes were shabby. Her cheeks were puffy and so were the eyes. She was standing flushed against the dirty wall outside the shop, unsure of her right to occupy more space than that. It was not a free country for her, as the recent election propaganda had claimed; rather it was just marginally less oppressive than the jail she spent some time in, not long ago. She was looking around anxiously. She heard the shot, I assumed and she knew the victim, perhaps. This was a seedy part of the city, full of crooks and rampant crime..
