All morning Mary only sells six newspapers. She is huddled on her favorite bench with the unsold pile on the ground, and the chaos of street noises and the crowds of people numbing her. It is almost noon, and she makes pleading faces at cars whose passengers don’t seem to see her or look away. She wants to give up but has to try until the end.

Without thinking she walks off the curbside, between cars, something she never does because of her fear of wanting to get run over and die. She looks right into the heart of her fear, right into the faces of all the people she senses hate her, that wish she’d just go away, disappear, die, who wouldn’t mind her getting run over.

“Get out of the way!” a driver screams from one side.

“Hey, you crazy or something?” another calls out.

More drivers yell and honk, causing her to jump and turn in different directions. Mary’s short arms flail about. Some teenagers see her grave suffering and torture her with their horn, laughing and making fun of her jerking movements.

She shakes in terror, overcome by a severe panic attack and unable to move or breathe, stuck there between the lines of moving cars, dizzy from exhaust fumes blowing in her face.

“Have to breathe, Mary!” she yells at herself.