He finds a seat on the train and his face looks tired. There are layers of loose skin hanging around the edges, faded. I look up because he is wearing grey tailored pants like what Yeh Yeh used to wear when he was still alive. He has a smiliar collar shirt on, a cottoned, soft shirt, with rectangles and prism-liked grey and blue shapes.

I see the shirts often in rusty steel racks or plastic bins. Discounted racks. Rags.

I wonder what his name is as I peep into the wrinkle lines that look like light etchings that have been painstakingly formed on a worn-out road map, crumpled and thrown aside. I wonder who he is and where he is going. From his left profile, the creases, instead, resemble the paper street directories that are always folded behind Papa’s car. Everything goes in here: hopes, fears, lost dreams. Tentative meanderings. He doesn’t seem to smile very much.

I look away because I’ve always had a weakness for old people.

From the corner of my eye, I see his hands clapsed, fingers together. They dance around lightly at times. Over the years, his hands and arms have turned into something akin to a tie-and-dye project. White spots dot his face and arms and hands…sometimes clustered together. Sometimes splattered like an ink blot on his canvas body. They don’t seem to know what to do with the space and so seemingly seep into him like bleach.  During the trip, nobody looks at him. A few glances here and there. Life goes on and everyone returns to their bubble and takes up their rightful space on the train.  I want to scribble and change the pages of life for him as he makes his way out of the train.