i am legend

his face is familiar. as he climbs from a silver car an earring glints in the lights, flickering like a strobe. he smiles at no-one and smooths down a crease in his jacket. calmly he hides a wince as the december cool pokes a finger under his shirt with exploratory depth. acting, i guess.

hollywood teeth.

i expect he has spent most of the day in front of a mirror with a thousand well paid amazons stroking and carving and licking where possible. there is a response in the area that i don't quite understand. i spend the next ten minutes pondering it as i walk away, buffeted by latecomers desperate to glimpse his million dollar smile or his pristine wife.

they could just wait for tomorrow's edition of london lite, if they could stand the words.

it is noisy back there, and camera flashes are busy using up expensive batteries. it must be a little weird for him.
sometimes.
if he thinks about it.

i'm no superman

he thinks he's clark kent or something. hair, glasses, suit and tie all measure up. There is a giveaway though. underneath it all, he's a couple of feet shorter than me and about half as wide.

his tie is left only half done like he was in mid-change in a phonebox when he got the call from the tube.

it may be a fake tan, but i'm not so sure. he seems the type though.

if it were twenty years ago he'd be shouting down a big grey breeze block of a phone, struggling with the weight of its solid polycarbonate aerial. this would continue even into the tube system to keep everyone in the know about his business expertise, wealth and self-belief. today, instead, he covers the cover of his spy book with a dorothy perkins bag.

he maintains a puffed up chest in order to make him appear bigger and more solid. the breath control needed for this results in a constant look of concern.

big

he is enormous. before we settle in opposite seats we stood by each other with him towering above me as far as the roof allowed. tall and wide and thick. he has grown his hair long, thrown carelessly into an elastic banded horses tail.

i count 10 badges on his donkey jacket, each a weird tribal or comic book design apart from one pink ribbon. one has fallen off leaving just safety pin and some glue.

his head is slightly over sized for his features. his eyes are no where near symmetrical.

he is studying a badly written paper that will have been handed to him by some guy dressed in purple. there is an ironic smirk on his face as if to say "these guys are terrible journalists, but this is a free paper."

his fingernails are long and his arms are more hairy than average.

who are you?

there is a split straight through his thumbnail, looks like he has taken a sharp knife and slowly & carefully sliced a ruler straight line from base to tip. dark brown dried blood marks it out.

it is not worrying him. he sits with legs wide apart, a large sized paperback open on his lap and his arms following the direction of the pages so his elbows stick out beside him and into the burgundy haired woman on one side.

the book is old, second or third hand from an old musty bookshop or riverside table sale. if the bookmark tells the truth; he is a fast reader and has zipped through maybe a hundred pages on this journey.

i think he is an artist. there is a tiny speck of paint on one trouser leg and none of his clothes match.

i never get to see what book he is reading, he dives from the train at the last moment before the doors close at kings cross.

girl, interrupted

She finds reasons to avoid reading her novel. Constantly she picks it up, reads a line or two and places it back on her leatherette handbag with the relief snakeskin pattern marked out by grease stains. Gabriel Garcia Marque one hundred years of solitude is written on its cover. She attempts to look interested as she skims over a story that skims over a family skimming through time.

With her topcoat buttoned high and her dry straw hair doing their best to cascade over her shoulders; there is but a glimpse of a victorian blouse.

She looks intensely at the route map above my head. Then, with a sigh, heads back to dusty lands and tiresome generations.

She has a pointy face. All features lean forwards in a constant hasty distain. Her engagement ring looks homemade.

I wonder if anyone will ever notice me writing about them like this.

underground

He clutches an empty espresso cup, holding it near his face as though to smell the remaining frangrance. His hair is slick, ginger deadened by products fighting to hold it against his head.

He has clearly spent a great deal of time trimming his beard into its perfect shape.

He looks american.

Clothes betray each other. A red striped sports top, african necklace with the manufactured tooth of a pretend animal, Tight jeans hold things in place and bulge awkwardly when he crosses and uncrosses his legs. The biggest contradiction covers his feet in enormous black leather and
metal boots, all buckles and studs and architectural steel structures.

Black ray-ban shades are proudly displayed, resting on his forehead and each time he removes them to clean last five minutes dust he reveals two temporary ray-ban scars just above his eyebrows.

His eyes are dark. Like a raven.