Livin' innercity

'All the crazies, tryin' to space me and I don't know
I'm not easy, don't try to please me, stay on the phone' -- Supergrass

Rush hour: a mad dash of the dashing mad, the trained mad, the plain mad. In moments of quiet, the still moments, a man sits opposite, clutching his dark red rucksack to his chest. As the train slows to stop he steps up and advises a fellow fellow to remove his id card from the string around his neck. A crazy person might try and strangle him, he laughs. We all take a step back. It's my stop so I start out of the sliding doors but he takes an early lead. I watch as he struggles to put his arms through both straps of his sack, like a turtle flailing to pull on his shell. On his bag I notice names, signatures, scrawled all over in thick black marker pen, best wishes, good lucks, and keep in touches. School must have been out for a while though, as he has the body of a mid-life crisis, yet the acne-laden skin of the aged teen. His rain mac is slightly too small, he pulls the elastic string around his neck and his hood draws tightly around his face, repeatedly he pushes his plastic glasses up the bridge of his nose, repeatedly. And as he shuffles and twitches away the sadness, the unbearable overwhelming sadness of the image makes me look away embarrassed.