Peak hour, crowded tram. Deep in my book, head down in a forest of winter clothing, I sense rather than see the form that moves in my direction. The form sits down at my side. The face that I glimpse is dark, a face of bones and wrinkles like ravines. The hair, a crown of silver curls, strewn or scattered, falls in accord with the whim of wind or gravity or inertia.

The man is short and narrow. His slim haunches scarcely fill half of the empty half seat at my side. He looks about my age, but, reckoning with an educated eye I decide he’s two decades younger. Ragged black clothing speaks of neglect. The silver hair smells of cigarette smoke. A whiff of breath speaks of last night’s grog. Surrounding him, standing or seated, commuters armed and painted for the day in the City, all in their groomed elegance, escape into screens and music. The forest towers above and about him. The man lacks all accoutrement and adornment. He sits with his stillness, the smallest adult.

The man sits with his back to me. I return to my book which absorbs me for a mile or two. A rattle of a flat voice at my side brings me back to the tram. The voice speaks a question: Alfred Hospital? Before I can compose a response the slim young woman facing the black man speaks, It’s close, I think. I’ll look it up. The young woman interrogates her phone with quick little fingers. Her hair is light brown, her face nearly pink, her glasses, large and round, giving her the look of an undergraduate continually astonished by the adult world. Her eyes are small, shiny, slanted.

Yes, she says, it’s the stop after the next one.

The man’s voice rattles: Medical appointment.

The young woman leans, points further down the track, over her shoulder: Commercial Road. The man sits as we all do, in the young woman’s face, in uninvited intimacy. Her voice is kind, her gaze at the man, steady, frank, unafraid.

The rattle again: Dunno what the doctors will tell me.

I hope you’ll be alright.

The thin man rises just as the tram lurches to a stop. He glides toward the door, correcting for the lurching with a deft swing of hip and thigh that is effortless and graceful. He dismounts and disappears.