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Wraith

Every morning, I wake at 7a.m., drink a medium cafetiere of Blue Mountain ground coffee, eat two slices of wholemeal toast and then take a quick shower. The coffee evaporates any sandman cobwebs that may have lingered from the Dreaming, and the shower sluices away the dead skin cells accumulated like a microscopic dust layer on my once glorious body.
I emerge from the shower renewed and refreshed, ready to face the challenges of a new day. It's a time of limitless possibilities and endless horizons, before the weight of the daily grind has had a chance to grapple me under the wet blanket of monotony.
I live but 5 minutes from the train station, which is on a direct line to bustling Shinjuku and my rather plush office. I can do this journey now with my eyes closed, having gone back and forth on the same route for 3 years. In fact, I have actually done it with my eyes closed once. A friend was staying over at my place, and we were both going into Shinjuku, so I bet him I'd be able to do it. He made sure I didn't fall onto the train tracks and be mistaken as a salariman suicide, and I cruised all the way to my office with my eyes shut.
Anyway, I'm digressing.
Whichever morning it is in the week, I always pass the same man as I walk to the station - I am going and he is returning. His outfit never changes: black, baggy suit, white shirt with top button undone, black tie worn askew and dulled Oxford shoes. He looks shabby, with black, greasy, shoulder length hair, sallow skin which looks tinged with nicotine, dark small eyes that have long lost their sparkle and stare dead ahead. He has a wiry frame and narrow shoulders that droop down to his disproportionately long arms. These arms never swing when he walks. They hang, lank and still by his sides, as he walks quickly and mechanically by me. Each time I pass him, I get a whiff of stale sweat, cigarette smoke and moth balls.
He lives in an old dilapidated apartment block, of which, as far as I know and can fathom, he is the only resident.
He is striking in his desolation. I've never seen him with anybody and I've never seen him change his empty, lost expression. Just like a wraith.
This morning, the sun filters through my burgundy curtains. I pull them back and am bathed in strong, Spring sunshine. I let the warmth engulf my naked body - it feels good. Having just woken-up, my mind is too foggy to register the fact that I'm standing there naked, in full view of the street, but gradually an internal alarm bell is ringing a warning to open my eyes. My eyes snap open, which is silly, as I'm immediately blinded by the sun. Flash-light tofu circles flicker in my vision, fading, fading, fading to adjust back to reality. I look down to the street, and meet the dead stare of the wraith man.
He's looking up at me. His mouth is wide open and his hands hold his head between them. He has the expression of somebody who has just caught sight of a butt naked, full frontal man beast, framed in a window, every pore visible. I think he's screaming. I can hear a high pitched, child-like scream and it's definitely coming from his mouth.
He turns around too quickly, still clutching his head, loses his balance but tries to run and falls over in the middle of the street. A male cyclist manouvers to avoid him and crashes into an oncoming car. He hits the car bonnet, trundles over the roof and goes careening into a young mother, who is pushing a baby cart. The mother falls forward from the impact, and pushes her baby cart back across the road toward my apartment. A garbage collection truck, which is coming down the road swerves to avoid it, and flings the garbageman hanging onto the back of the truck up and onto the garbage truck's roof.
As the driver applies brakes, the back of the truck swings around and flings out a deluge of rubbish, which after flying a low arc through the air, lands with an audible thump right on top of wraith man! He's completely buried in the stuff. He doesn't move, and the kinetic chaos around him has now come to a complete stand-still.
I survey the now quite tranquil scene, knowing that in less than a second or two there will be an eruption of movement and sound. Anticipating this, being by now fully wide-awake, I draw the curtains closed, let out a deep breath and go and put the kettle on. I guess that'll be the last I'll be seeing of the wraith man.