After being shoved into the crowded metro yet again on the brown line, the first thing I noticed was the old bandage wrapped around his head. He was asleep, and his cloths worn and dirty. Then I saw the empty space next to him—too good to be true—and I didn’t have time to wonder why before plopping myself down. The answer assaulted my nostrils like nothing I’ve ever smelled before: sour, grimy and something else in between. I looked at his wound, a patch of dark red the size of a tennis ball above the right temple. Bits of dried blood stuck to the right ear and his greasy hair. Familiar images of paramedics trying to revive drunken bums lying on the marble floor in metro stations flooded my mind. I breathed through my mouth until I realized the obvious lesson life was teaching today, but after inhaling thrice I grew thankful for the swimming lessons at YMCA way back when. The indigo animal fur-clad lady sitting on my other side gingerly folded an index finger beneath her nostrils; more a gesture than a sincere attempt. I wondered if she thought it was me who reeked of poverty and neglect, neglected by this world in which he has no voice and no place but a seat on the metro. Ideas of stuffing one hundred rubles in the opening of his gray sweater were quickly extinguished by the thought of him buying yet another bottle to help him forget. I got up and got out at Park Kultury, but no one took that seat in the crowded metro.
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