163

Common courtesy means that you must think of others beyond yourself.  Toddlers cannot do this.  When toddlers grow into small children, they gain this sense of other, but it is not permanent.  A sudden surge of hormones in the teenage years wipes away all thought of others.  Teenagers go back to toddlerhood, and it is a much tougher fight to regain this sense than it was to achieve the first time.  It is this difficulty that often stops many from finding common courtesy again.

You find these underdeveloped, self-absorbed adult teen/toddlers everywhere.  They are the ones who make appointments they don't keep.  They are the ones who throw garbage next to garbage cans.  They are the ones who tailgate.  They are the ones who promise over and over a task will be done, and never do it.

And it is the ones who re-achieved their evolution back to common courtesy who must suffer.

162

In the warm blackness of the evening, the street was oddly quiet.  Distantly, a car hummed, but the nearest few blocks were empty of vehicles, people, animals, and even wind.  It was still and motionless, like an abandoned movie set.

161

Cara was living inside of time, right down to the moment, which is much smaller than even a single second.  Most people live in tomorrows though that is an impossible illusion.  Cara preferred living right in the dirt.  In the dirt under her nails.  In the smudges in her fingerprint whorls.  In the molecules that were absorbed into her cells.