The signs were all bilingual; English text, presumably translations, printed beneath the Thai read “The entire world revolves in your mind” and “To do good and evil unseen by others is always seen by oneself” and “Crying with the wise is better than laughing with the fool” and “Everyone may be a fool but nobody is a fool forever” and—possibly his favorite (Pablo felt, rightly or wrongly, that as a translator he had a special dispensation to appreciate translation “errors” for their poetry)—“Please be aware of your belonging.”

When he looked up from the book, a stream of people was flowing into the tent.

Her invisibility seemingly intact, Marina sat still and looked around the room at the newcomers. Each was engaged in a series of movements that appeared to be so rehearsed as to be unconscious—she thought of the choreography of the assembly line in Modern Times, the way the Chaplin character’s job—tightening bolts—becomes so automatic that everything of a certain size and shape becomes a bolt to be tightened.

She now noticed that each of the newcomers—the incoming stream had stopped already—included as part of their choreography the act of hanging out an identifying sign in front of their tables. Some of the signs Marina was able, at least partially, to read.

“Division of Electrical and Synaptic Repair,” one advertised. “Division of the Worn______,” read another, its rightmost edge obscured by a reflective flare of light. There were also “Division of Muted Expectations,” “Division of Phantom Cure” (or “Phantom Care,” she wasn’t sure), “Division of Cleaning the Twelfth House,” “Division of ___sibility,” and “Division of the Irrevocably Mechanical.”

She counted eleven tables other than her own; it occurred to her that she and Pablo might also be expected to put out signs, but then she had the idea to walk around to the front of her table to take a look and saw that a sign had already been affixed to the front of her half of the table—it read “Division of Conflict”—and another to the front of Pablo’s half that read “Division of Conversation.”

The sign on the door had changed. It was the same sign, but the words on it had changed. Pablo was certain it had read PERSONAL REPAIR CAFÉ when he arrived—he and Marina had even wondered aloud together at the wording and its meaning. Now, in the same manual typewriter font on the same (it seemed) rectangle of paper, the sign read SELF REPAIR CAGE.

He tossed his extinguished cigarette to the ground and went back in.

THE ENTIRE WORLD REVOLVES IN YOUR MIND