<html><head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html charset=utf-8"></head><body style="word-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; -webkit-line-break: after-white-space;" class=""><p style="box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class=""><span style="box-sizing: border-box;" class=""><font color="#111111" class="">So, You Must Talk to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones<i class=""> </i></font></span></p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class=""><em style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">When a fish swims up to you with a barrel and rifle already attached, sometimes it almost feels wrong to go out of your way to shoot it. Nonetheless:</em></p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">So it has come to this.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You must speak to the woman who is wearing headphones.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">I am so, so sorry.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You must pray that she is single and looking and will wish to hear your words.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">It is not enough for her to be single<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">She must also be looking, or there is no hope for you.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">But you already know this.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You have seen what happened to the other men who tried to speak.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The whole Panera is littered with what remains of the men who came before you.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They tried to speak to the Woman Who Is Wearing Headphones.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They failed.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Remember the training and you may yet survive.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Remember what they told you.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You must be confident, relaxed and easygoing.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You must show no fear.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">If you show fear, she will strike.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Speak calmly, they said.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Show confidence.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Do not blink.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">If you blink, she will know.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">If you blink, she will move from 1 to 1.5 meters away to much closer, so close that you can hear the whisper of what is in her headphones.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">That is much too close.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">You have no choice.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">These are your instructions.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">You can talk to anyone, you tell yourself.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">It is only a woman, you tell yourself.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">But you know that it is not.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Women were something different.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Your comrade made the awful mistake of talking to the Woman Who Is Reading A Book On The Subway. You watched it happen.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">He made her look up from the book and her basilisk eyes fell on him, unblinking, and he melted.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You still remember the screams.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They were so horrible that the city lay awake for days trying to forget them.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">You do not know how it happened.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">But the women who stood there politely and were receptacles for your words are gone.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They once smiled politely and they laughed even and sometimes they would make a spark with you.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">But something changed in the air or perhaps the water and the women do not stand there and listen any longer.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">The city is full of men who have been turned to stone.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You opened the door to your neighbor’s apartment and there was a startled deer standing inside wearing a college sweatshirt. You think it used to be your neighbor but you are not certain.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You have changed your route to work so that you do not have to pass the stone men with their open, screaming mouths.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">Yesterday half your comrades were ordered to shout “Smile!” at the Woman Who Is Walking.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">And the woman did. Too wide.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">So wide that her mouth engulfed the street and became a vast cavern.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Six of your friends were devoured.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You could hear the unladylike slurping sounds from blocks away as you beat a hasty retreat between the Scylla of the Woman Who Has Put Her Bag Next To Her On A Bar Stool and the Charybdis of the Woman Who Is Just Jogging.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You did not attempt to speak to either of them.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">They passed you.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You were left unscathed.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">But that was before they came to your apartment and gave you the orders.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">So here you are.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">It has come to this.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">You are about to talk to the Woman in Headphones.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">My God, I pity you.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You are close now. Almost in range.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">Before The Woman and behind her the ground is littered with shoes and hats and pick-up manuals and AXE body spray.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">She sits patiently gnawing on a thigh bone.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You do not think she is single or looking.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You cannot make out the words she is listening to.</p><p style="color: rgb(17, 17, 17); box-sizing: border-box; line-height: 1.8em; margin: 0px auto 18px; max-width: 100%;" class="">You know how this will go.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You know what the headphones mean.<br style="box-sizing: border-box;" class="">You know what will happen when you ask her to remove the headphones.</p><div class=""><br class=""></div><div class=""><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space:pre"> </span>- Alexandra Petri</div></body></html>