He watched a young boy weave his way through a sidewalk's rush hour crowd, shoving against hips and legs to make his way up to block's end.  Instead of crossing the street, the boy stopped and stood, looked this way and that, and began then to backtrack down the block in now hesitant and uncertain steps.  He avoided bumping into anyone this time — which soon forced him to curb's edge, alongside parked cars.  The instant he questioned if this boy going south was indeed the same boy he had watched going north, he realized he had lost sight of the boy altogether.  In the time it then took to turn away from a third story office window to beg off a superior's query, he saw get imprinted on his mind an image of how different the same person is when he has lost his direction.