" A woman had died in the room next to mine, she had died on the other side of the wall I was leaning against, and I had known nothing of it. I had known nothing in the weeks when her husband mourned, nothing when I had nodded to him in greeting with headphones in my ears, or when I had folded clothes in the laundry room while he used the washer. I hadn't known him well enough to routinely ask how Carla was, and I had not noticed not seeing her around. that was the worst of it. I had noticed neither her absence nor the change - there must have been a change - in his spirit. It was not possible, even then, to go knock on his door and embrace him, nor speak with him at length. It would have been false intimacy. "

― Teju Cole , Open City