Through unmanicured hedges, the weeping willows that fell into the walkway, and other green growth grown wild, the scion of hundreds of varieties of trees brought by emissaries to General Skobilev at the turn of the century (or so I am told), Henrietta's silhouette emerged. In her tailored suit, her impractical high heels, which the local women wore on these treacherous pavements more skillfully than her, she walked with a slight lilt in her gait, a marked contrast from the last night.

I walked over to my waiter and carelessly handed him a wad of Uzbek money, which most likely was more than the cost of my coffee, but less than a dollar, so that I could rush over to her. Watching her nearly fall, I embraced her, feeling love for her at that moment as I noticed the occasional figures around us on the park benches, boys and girls,most likely stealing away a private moment enshrouded in the twilight, the trees, away from the eyes of parents, relatives, neighbors.

I took her hand as we walked under an orange sky towards the mahalla where all the foreigners live, where Alyssa's house was, and we chatted loudly about our days at work, our circle of friend as we strolled along the dirt roads, and I felt like I had never left the country, my trip home being a distant memory, though one that had left me with a very smart pair of shoes which Henrietta noticed in typical Central Asian manner -- where a person was scruitinized from toe to head, and much attention was given to good and clean footwear. Already, after wearing them less than a week, they were covered in a film of dust and the leather distressed, having trod Tashkent's treacherous paths.

There was not a soul in sight around us or so we thought. On the side of the road where we walked, in a bed of weeds, a man's figure lay. He could have been dead. Henrietta gasped as we drew near, drawing back in horror. I walked in to the tuft of tall brown grass that grew out of this dirt road, towards him, to get a look, leaving her behind. The man was dirty, his face red and puffy, and he gave off a powerful stench - that alcoholic formaldahyde smell I had grown so familiar with here. He was snoring gently. He was alive. If I had a doubt, I would have put a compact mirror under his nose to detect breathing through the condensation he would have left.

"Just a drunk, passed out," I said and we both shuddered and walked away in silence. This was not an uncommon sight, but nonetheless disconcerting, a buzz kill to the happy mood we felt, the lifting of sadness, the mock romance holding each others' hands, going to a party.

As we walked, we saw two Uzbek men walking towards us. One called over to me pointing out that my shoelaces were untied.

People here were always pointing out to you when your shoelaces were untied.

I thanked him and told Henrietta how even in the poorly lit streets, and from great distances they always seemed to be able to detect an untied shoelace, and they always pointed it out, which annoyed me.

I didn't tie my shoe. I wouldn't tie my shoe. Perhaps if just to spite him. And I could see that he would look back at me, every few steps, to see if I would tie my shoe. So concerned he was that I attend to my laces, he didn't even notice the drunk man lying at the side of the road as he passed, just walked right by a man who could be dead. "He's worried you might trip," Henrietta said, and I couldn't recall a time in my life that I tripped over untied laces.

"People here will walk by a dead man without batting an eyelash, but will stop you in the street if your shoelaces are undone,"  ¶ 8:27 AM