bus

He sits before me. Head twisted, directed left. His clothing is the colour, the texture, of old paper, greyed in the creases and cracks, fibrous to the touch. Large earlobes, he has, they say that earlobes keep growing when the substance behind them has ceased to grow, when the growth of the bones has slowed to a halt. When a person must continue to live with what they have, skin starting to deviate, sagging outward, for want of something else.
His head is twisted to what is behind the glass of the window, and the afternoon sun pierces his translucent iris, revealing an outer layer of light blue, surrounding the warm brown inner layer, like a strongly-brewed straight tea.

I swear I've seen him before.
Slicing fruit, depositing portions into short plastic bags, his stall vying for attention next to the mamak places which are bunched up around the corner. I've seen him before, he slices, he dices, he stares ahead, but he doesn't see the people, he sees his thoughts, his boredom, and the milky haze of the sky which slows all work in the afternoon and inspires nostalgia.

His papery clothes shake like sheets around his thin frame as he steps off the bus, into the dusk.