Man on the Red Line

Man on the Red Line by Viola Day

I stood there, waiting for the Blue Line, waiting closely enough to the yellow warning strip on the pavement that warns you to stand back unless you preferred a severed foot. (Who’d want that?)

Before the Blue Line, came the Red Line. On the Red Line, I saw this man. At the time when both my hands were buried into my pockets, my fingers rolling pocket lint into tiny balls as I bounced my right leg out of impatience, I grew most fascinated by him. He sat, slouched and engrossed in his thoughts, looking pensive as ever. His posture implied fragility, but his disregard for his surroundings alluded to resilience. His basic seemingly second-hand wardrobe and coarsely beard said he had bigger things to worry about.

Was he writing a letter to his estranged father?

Revisiting poorly written directions from a phone call made earlier?

While the people around him continued to crowd his space—a woman who appeared as though she’d been carrying the most expensive brown leather briefcase and a boy about sixteen juggling four whiffle balls and listening to ska music—this stranger confiscated my attention when all I really wanted to do was roll tiny balls of lint and wait for the Blue Line.