It was early morning, 5am. Like always, he collected the morning paper from the front gate, made himself a cup of instant coffee and sat down in his office to read the morning news, with a little packet of biscuits. Dunk them, then a little nibble. Dunk again, flip the paper, a little bite…

Stir slowly and dredge up the remains of cookie sludge, fallen at the bottom of the cup. He looks so lost sometimes, I wonder if he feels lonely and yet, I wish I knew how to ask him. I’d like to take him out and dance once in a while, but instead, I sit next to him and just try to understand what he is thinking.

The old man looks at me, and nods in my direction with his gaze fixed somewhere just above my forehead. He reads his paper silently.

Suddenly something in the papers catches his eye. It’s a picture of an old movie star he used to go crazy about. Her skin had sagged around her jaw; her face looked many, many years older than she was. A surgery gone wrong. Allergic reaction to the injection causing in rapid deterioration of the skin. She looks like melted wax.

He looks at the newspaper and is silent for a long time…maybe remembering how beautiful his old movie star was, when she was young, when he was young...

A deep sigh. He looks at me...finally.

OLD MAN (in mandarin)
You must eat your vegetables.

I reply in broken mandarin, "I like vegetables a lot!" (smile)

He pats my head, and says, "Good…Then you will always be young and beautiful."

He turns back to the paper, sighs again.
Dunk the biscuit, flip the page, nibble a bit. Silence.

There’s so much I want to ask. So many stories he could tell me…but I dare not.