--Talya Hyman
The man with the melodic, steady voice and the worn out sneakers walking up and down the downtown-bound 1 train. His eyes closed. He hits every note. “Isn’t she lovely,” he serenades hundreds of commuters who do not wish to be serenaded.
The religious man standing on a cardboard mat along the side of a New York City street. Backwards baseball cap atop his head and shoes beside him on the pavement. He bows in his devotion, stands up, and bows again. The parked cab awaits its driver.
The old woman clanking a tin canister of coins at prayer-goers and tourists on their way down the slippery stairs to the Western Wall. Rain or shine, there she is. Baggy shawls, draped in layers around her head and across her body. "Please," she says to no one, but everyone, in particular. A tattered, crinkled prayer book is frozen in her other hand.
The man in yellow, or maybe it’s green, hanging off the side of the garbage truck early every Monday morning. He has it down to a science. Hop off. Trash can lid off. Trash dumped into the back end of the truck. Trash can left forgotten at the end of some neighbor's driveway. Hop on. He’s already at the next street over.
The small and alone African-American boy sitting in a subway car reading a paperback. Eyes dizzyingly dart from left to right. He only looks up when he realizes his stop is next. He walks over to the white, older couple sitting across the way. They smile as they lovingly clutch his shoulder, then his hands. The doors clank open and together, they descend onto the platform and head off into the night.
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