(Editor's Note: This is a vignette, a very short piece of fiction. Not quite a story, but interesting enough in its own way.)

She grabbed her keys on the way out. The sun was giving a half-assed attempt at shining and the breeze held a wintry bite to it. The red parka she wore outside was the only thing that didn't look drab on that soggy early morning while people who would rather be in their beds, hiding underneath their warm electric blankets, trudged along the sidewalks, heating their hands by clutching too-expensive fair trade coffee in recyclable styro cups.

She was supposed to be preparing for a lecture she was going to give to the local high school on the global impact of American teen consumerist culture. As she walked by shop after shop that hawked glittery clubbing clothes to girls not old enough to get into most of the clubs in town, she felt this cloying heaviness descend on her, constricting her chest, slowing her steps.

She stopped and put her forehead against the glass pane of a ritzy boutique. Her breath clouded the glass, making bigger circles of condensation every time she breathed out. She stood there, transfixed for a moment, lost in how the circle got smaller every time she breathed in, and bigger again when she exhaled.

She shook herself out of her reverie and when she looked up, the person opening the boutique was watching her with a soft smile playing on her lips.

"It's good to remember how to breathe sometimes, noh?"

She was beautiful. She sounded like a man. But she was wearing an elaborate and frilly dress shirt. And leather pants with knee-high laced-up boots. And a prominent crotch bulge. Her Adam's apple bobbed up and down as she laughed throatily. Such a sexy man-laugh.

"I've got hot cocoa in here. Would you like some?"