Stopped at a light, the rising sun glimmering the frost-blasted foliage around me. I mirror-glanced the driver behind me through wisps of steamy exhaust. Oriental, female, high cheekbones, a slender noble face. Her hair was parted back and collected behind her narrow neck, glimmering earrings clasped to shell-like ears, as beautiful as a geisha.

And she was doing something that, as both a motorist and cyclist, really torques me.

She was applying mascara.

But how beautiful.

One tiny hand clasped the steering wheel with a gentle dove-like touch, her fingers poised in a tidy little line. Her other hand, raised, her trim fingers forming a teardrop of delicate pink, traced the applicator along the exotic sweep of her eyes. She maintained the expressionless femininity of the East, silent, poised, perfect.

The light changed and I drove on. I’m sure whoever she might kill would be honored be to struck down by so beautiful a visage.