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.