
Passenger, Metro 54, 2009
You see him all the time.
Everywhere.
He lives and moves and operates in your world. You exist in the same orbit of sidewalks and stores and parks and stoplights. He minds his own business, tends to his own thoughts. He shares nothing of himself with you, is uninterested in you, and seems entirely comfortable with that arrangement.
He won't make eye contact with you. But, why would he? You offer him nothing but your curiosity and, maybe, your contempt.
His age is indeterminate. He could be anywhere from thirty to fifty. He is white and small and scrawny. He sports a goatee. He wears a loose fitting t-shirt, tattered jeans, and a baseball hat worn backwards. And always sunglasses. Today he is listening to something, or nothing, on oversized headphones.
He moves like a ghost, appearing here, then there, out of nowhere, unannounced. And just as quickly, he is gone. Without a trace.
(Maybe he really wants something from you and is following you, gathering information, making observations about you. Perhaps behind those sunglasses his steely eyes are tracking your every move. Might he be trying to break you down? Is he plotting some crime against you?)
You see him outside the pet store, squatting against the cool brick exterior. His hands are folded. His head is downcast, motionless. You take note of his posture, his dress, his willful disdain for convention, as you walk past. But he doesn’t seem to notice you.
Then you see him coming out of the auto parts store, hands in pockets, and he glides by you, brushing against you, without so much as a glance of recognition. He has something on his mind and it’s clearly not you.
You buy a candy bar and when you leave the drug store, he enters.
Minutes later, there he is again, standing outside a dark tavern by himself. Is this mere chance? (Of course it is.) Why does this man intrigue you so? Should you say something to him? Something stupid like, “Fancy running into you again.” No. You walk right by him like he does not exist and behind those black sunglasses he is just as perplexed and amused and slightly bothered by these encounters as you. Or so you like to think, anyway.
You wait for the bus to arrive to take you downtown, away from this neighborhood. And him.
You step onto the bus and pay your fare and you see him, of course, seated there, by himself, leaning against the window, buried under the oversized headphones, lost in thought.
Every instinct tells you to take a seat at the very back of the bus, hidden from his watchful eye, but you choose to sit just a few seats behind him because you need to see where this relationship is headed.

Parking Lot, Northgate Mall, 2009