Aziz followed him toward the mixing machines and stood to the side as the young man punched in the computer codes for the paint. The young man started talking with another like himself in the same exact pants and shirt. Aziz could not hear them over the sound of the machine. The coworker—who had not much backside and a big ball of a stomach—seemed to have more to say. His mouth moved quickly, his eyes stayed in no particular way that conveyed anything, and his impassive posture was constant. Aziz’s salesman started pushing his chin forward and then drawing it toward his neck. He did this more than once. Aziz tried to do the same with his chin. Sometimes, if he did a movement, he felt something, and that feeling he was able to recognize, and know a little about the emotion of an exchange or of what someone was saying to him. But sometimes, when he imitated in this way, the person became furious.

Both of them were shaking their heads now. The paint was done. Aziz’s young man flipped a switch and kept talking to the other one while he withdrew the paint cans from the machine. By now there was a line by the counter, and Aziz could feel the anger behind him.

“Yappity-yap,” a hoarse man said.

“This a talk show or a paint store?”

“Here you go, sir,” Aziz’s salesman said, smiling, probably, Aziz thought, because Aziz was the one he was satisfying, and the others were mice.

“Next,” said the other one, his posture the same as before. He cared nothing for anyone.

Aziz produced a credit card.

“You got some ID?” the young man said. The not-readable aspect had returned.

“No,” Aziz said. “I have this.” He pulled out three pieces of paper.

“Oh, okay, no problem,” the young man said, without looking at them. “Good deal.” He took the credit card, pushed it on a machine, and gave it back. Then he started talking to the other one again.

He handed Aziz a box with the gallons resting inside. “Signature on file,” he said. Aziz said “Yes” and lowered his eyes to see his feet walking on the cement floor.

At night, he kept his window open. Mostly he did this so the sound of the airport, the jet engines on their regular intervals, could put him to sleep. He loved them. They were going to places that existed but could not be seen. This made him feel that death, as he had been accustomed to thinking of it, was perhaps something of a mistake of thinking.