Bright colours swirl around him like a manic rainbow. Dark leather sandals, brilliant red pants, a magnificently striped top of purples, blues and maroons, and a bright blue knitted hat upon his dreadlocks - he seems to shine, and the silver pendants hanging around his neck capture the colours and spin them like a kaleidoscope. Behinds his mirrored glasses, he may have smiling eyes - I cannot tell, for his lips are still. The gold ring in his nose seems completely in place - like it was there all along, not placed after an expensive piercing performed to display some facet of indiviuality.

Do they see me watching, observing their clothes and outer masks, trying to decode messages and encrypted social conventions which may not even be there? Do they feel me wondering, knowing that I wish I could talk to them, prise away the namelessness and find out what makes them less a stranger and more... them?

The train stops, and the man picks up his canvas bag, striped in gold, green and red. He leaves without ever knowing that he was like a splash of vivid paint in a dark urban backdrop, or that I thought his clothes were pretty.

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