Decatur County Fair

There are nervous tics you have that spring into action when you make eye contact or walk into a place you've never been, familiar movements, comforting gestures like checking your watch, cracking a knuckle, tapping out a brief burst of rhythm on your thighs.

Then there are the yawns, the ones that happen when you're about to walk past something you find threatening, something like a group of loud, gravel-voiced men whose attentions could turn on you if shown a sign that you're weak, that their presence affects you. The yawns that say, or really attempt to say, "I have seen this before, and it does not worry me."

And sometimes those fake yawns turn into real yawns, so that the pretty middle-aged woman on the train, the one whose distinct but simultaneous appearances as a mother figure and an attractive older woman intimidate you in equal parts, she notices. You feel like an idiot, having already stretched out your fake-yawn for longer than you should have and now segued seamlessly into the real one. You're forced to go through with it so that this woman assumes you have the kind of mouth that never closes, and you're confused about whether she'd be more likely to say, "I can think of a way to wake you up..." or, "go to bed now, you're getting cranky."