HE WORE OFF-WHITE trainers with built-up soles. The caved-in line of his jaw told me he had no teeth of his own. The other one, with honey-brown skin, held numerous bags and an ancient boom box. They met outside the bunker-like train station, arms raised in mutual salutation, no Renaissance princes more deferential. How long since they had seen each other? A day? An hour? I watched them asseverate in clown-show while above the sky grew mottled and spat rain. Loss gathered about us like clouds of stone. COVID-19 ground to one of its many temporary halts.