Commuter Reading Newspaper on Passing Subway

He was there every morning. Back pressed against the same tiled column, face buried in the same folded paper. The train screamed past in a blur of light and steel, but he never looked up.

I used to think he was reading. Now I’m not so sure.

The pages never turned. The headlines always looked a day too old. The ink bled at the corners, like it’d been caught in the rain and dried stiff. Not smudged—fractured. Like the words had splintered from holding too much truth.

People streamed by, heads down, earbuds in. Nobody saw him. Nobody wanted to.

You stay in this city long enough, you start spotting the ones who’ve slipped through. The ghosts who walk like commuters but don’t cast shadows. The ones who read the news like they’re still trying to make sense of how they died.

This morning, the train came late. When it finally passed, he wasn’t there. Just a strip of torn newsprint curling in the breeze. A face on the front page I thought I recognized.

And in the cracked lines of the platform beneath my feet, I swear I saw letters forming. Like the city itself was trying to remember him. Or warn me.

I didn’t read the paper. I already knew how the story ended.