The Lonely Man

He wears a baseball cap because it's warmth to replace his receding hair, but also because it reminds him of being a boy, holding hands with his father. He smokes too much and worries about his skin greying, teeth yellowing and the lingering smell on his clothes. Everyday is the same and he longs for a break in the monotony, for someone to break up his routine even with a dirty spread of clothes on the bedroom floor, toothpaste squeezed from the tube and caked around the basin, teabags left on the draining board. Someone to grapple with physically and mentally.

He worries he has got to the age where people think him an oddity, a loner, a weirdo. When he attempts to make polite conversation on the train, on his morning commute, women turn away or answer with a few well-mannered words and then resurrect the barrier of music, a book, a phone, or worse the window. Studying the scenery with intent. Do they fear his intentions, he wonders? He just wants human connection, to share his thoughts with another warm-blooded, hot-wired brain.

The Worried Woman

Paddington station, 10am, Saturday morning. The cold air swirls around travellers' coats and bags. The new style of light, bright, airy design is aesthetically pleasing but provides no comfort in winter. A woman stands near the display boards, her curly hair only partially covering up her expression of mild panic. A young child stands by her (9? 10 years old?) and the curious, the most striking thing, her expression exactly mirrors the woman's. Anxiety etched over her innocent and unfurrowed brow. Her gaze set, as the woman's, in the direction of the platforms. Then a man touches the woman's arm and murmurs something and the woman smiles, a huge beautiful smile, which radiates out from her, to her partner and to the child. Instantly the girl relaxes, bodily, without seemingly even looking at the woman (her mother?). Have I witnessed some evidence of the unspoken, unseen bond between mother and child? Are emotions passed from parent to child, like curly hair and dark eyes? Or is it the animal instinct of picking up others' body language, scents, currents in the air.