�

I scrunch down in the tram seat and let people lump their bags of shopping all around me. The man standing by my side has his crotch at my eye level and his pants smell slightly of old pee � I wonder if he ever goes to the laundry? The woman beside me has a glossy magazine with fantastical images spilling out from the page and into her imagination� she�s wondering where she can find $40 to buy the lipstick that promises her everlasting youth and beauty. Directly opposite me is a young boy who has decided that trams are meant for play, and he is stamping on the seat and swinging round the pole, knocking into the standing commuters blocking the aisle. A few of them grumble, but I smile indulgently, as if he were a relation instead of a noisy stranger. Next to the boy is a slight woman in her late twenties whom I assume is his long-suffering mother. She is nibbling pretzels from a shiny packet and staring absent-mindedly out the tram window, watching leaves and clouds and cars and houses go by in slow motion. Her mouth is very small and she has to bite each pretzel in half before putting it in to chew � her cud-like grinding is starting to get on the nerves of the woman with the glossy magazine, and she is flipping pages with a fierce intensity as if to flap the chewing away.

Later, in the mall, I am rifling through a stack of underpants to find a pair in my size and I notice magazine woman a few feet away, herself rummaging through a pile of discounted underclothes. This makes me smile a little to think that her glossy magazine aspirations are brought down to the reality of a Target discount bin. But then she gives a huff of disappointment and stalks away toward the homewares section; I wonder what she was looking for but could not find?

The rest of the day brings vignettes like this, and when I return home I am exhausted, flopping into comfy armchair of blessed relief. I ponder the reason for my tiredness and realise that I have spent the day being invisible in order to make others more visible for observation. A sensory vampire, hiding in shadows to be amused by the antics of the watched, the unknowing. I am shopping for human experience.