Still Looking

Benedict Cumberbatch sits casually in his big tan leather chair. But nothing quite casual about it.

A man in a black coat walks in. The eyes move — not dramatically, not obviously. Just a quiet, continuous intake. The cat hair on the sleeve. The tobacco stain. The slight hesitation before the handshake.

Thirty seconds. The most attention I have seen paid to another human being in a long time.

We all look this carefully once. At the beginning — of a friendship, a love, a city we've just moved to. Everything sharp, everything significant, nothing yet categorised. We are all Sherlock then.

And then we file.

Filing is not laziness. It is comfort. The relief of the familiar — I know you. In a world of relentless motion, the filed version of things is how we rest.

But the person we filed last year has continued, quietly, to become someone slightly different. We didn't notice. We were consulting the file.

Sherlock never stops looking.