Getting a little taste, I see.
It was a big older fellow with a seamed face and picket teeth. He wasn’t from any Tingle that Lane Dean had ever observed from his own. The man had on a headlamp with a tan cotton band like some dentists wore and a type of thick black marker in his breast pocket. He smelled of hair oil and some kind of food. He had part of his bottom on the edge of Lane’s desk and was cleaning under his thumbnail with a straightened-out paperclip and speaking softly. You could see an undershirt under his shirt; he wore no tie. He kept moving his upper body around in a slight kind of shape or circle, and the movements left a little bit of a visual trail. None of the wigglers in either adjoining row was paying attention to him. Dean checked the face in the photo to make sure he wasn’t still dreaming.
They don’t ever say it, though. Have you noticed? They talk around it. It’s too manifest. As if talking about the air you’re breathing, yes? It would be as if saying, I see so-and-so with my eye. What would be the point?