effervescent refractions

I was walking home about a week ago, idly gazing at a poster inlayed in the glass wall of a bus stop. The placard featured George Clooney smiling his million-dollar smile, sitting in a sooty suit on a black backdrop, a cup of Nespresso in hand, and a wisp of vapor elegantly tying his floating head to the drink. “What else?” it said, driving the popular slogan one notch deeper in my brain. I began to wonder what it must be like to be George Clooney, passing by a suburban Paris street, seeing my own face for the fourth time that day, pasted once again, like a moment frozen in time. In a second, the thought was gone, as my memory accessed the five-digit code to my residence, a sequence I hadn’t performed in months. A few days later, I saw George Clooney again, this time on television, touting his coffee once more. I thought of the bus stop again and what an odd feeling it must be to think that several million people mechanically recognize his face, every day, on their way to wherever. How could I ever know that feeling? And then it hit me. If only I had looked at the bus stop itself, the arrêt de bus dotted across every street of Paris, discretely stamped of the name JCDecaux. A piece of design in itself, far more useful than George’s face will ever be. If I can see myself in society through design someday, it will have been worth the trouble.