Monday, September 9, 2013

Orpheus

He's skinny, and not just regular skinny: spindly neck, bony wrists and shoulders, sunken cheeks and arcing clavicles forming deep, shadowed pockets. He's facing the subway doors, the ones away from the platform, toward the center, toward the darkness of the tunnels, muttering and singing to no one.

He isn't holding on to anything, so when the train goes around the corner, he loses his balance and checks me in the back with his pointy shoulder.

He's so light he barely makes an impact, but when I ask if he's okay, he glares at me with deep set, suspicious eyes that only gradually soften back into insensibility as he turns back to the darkness to sing his tuneless song.

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