I follow the lines down to my smooth pale wrist. Bruised and scarred. Present and past, merged in termoil, a spectra of pain. I look at the veins buldging under the taught, translucent skin. They are the colour of fountains and statues, the green of old worn copper, smudged into the swirling dark bruises. Even here there are lines, thin as air, beneath old scars, signs of what is screaming, what I can't forget for looking. These lines are not in blood red like my hands. They are pale, delicate, like cobwebs and butterfly wings. The scars glisten and shine. No longer gaping open and red with blood, black and flowing, swollen.

   The man next to me is watching me. His eyes flicker from the corner to corner, occasionally moving his head for a better view. I look at him. Direct. Fixed. Locked onto his eyes, his face. He twitches, stares blankly forwards, uncomfortable, fidgeting, trapped.

   I wonder what he is thinking. We have sat together on the train for twenty eight minutes, so close our clothes caress. Air passes from lung to lung, the same oxygen flows through our veins, through our pulsating hearts. Yet no one talks even with such intimacy. A strange time we live in, a coachful of people staring blankly, afraid to make eye contact. Scared to look into space for too long. Avoiding faces, bodies. Nowhere to look. Plugged into MP3s, controlled by music and machines. Engulfed by newspapers and magazines. I look around at all of the signs, instructing the nation on what to do, how to act, how to live. What to think.

   I read his newspaper with him. Propaganda and conspiracy fill our numb minds. Filtering our thoughts. Changing our opinions, our conscience. Paranoia sets in.