He prepares the ticket, tearing it down the middle then folding each half into two inverted ‘V’s, slightly stretched out of shape. With soft precision he places them edge to edge on the small ‘Stop’ button ridge so that they form a sharp ‘M’ there. The vibrations of the bus cause them to separate and so, with the tip of his forefinger, he pushes them back together trying to maintain their shape; a quiet smile to himself when he succeeds. If they fall then he catches them in his open palm waiting there below, almost cursing the driver out loud for unwittingly despoiling his creation. He derives satisfaction from the company of paper. Gradually he is turning into parchment. His skin, his hair fibres; the ink of his life sketched out again and again, over and over, there until the self is almost indecipherable.

Sheffield