He got a ticket for the late night special. A pudgy man held out his hand, and that cracked palm anxiously snatched at the crumpled bills; only a red and faded yellow strip of paper was handed back. He spends a moment on it, then sticks it in the back of his book-James Joyce's Dubliners. It is a copy he bought when he compulsively entered the third bookstore of the day. He had the time then, or so he assumed.
It was a horrible habit, bookstores. A lover who abused by eating his money, but he somehow ended up back. The scraps of love he hordes from the pages somehow turn into novels of affairs and bookshelves of relationships. His appetites took over and would not be quelled until another second-hand copy of any volume was in his greedy possession.
He doesn't remember the last time he read this book. There is a foggy memory of a high school afternoon; the sun lending him the warmth to fight against the grey, looming worlds in Joyce's words. Now he sits next to the rattling window on a train. There is no sunlight streaming in, but now he doesn't need it. At last he carries his own sun.
The watch on his wrist failed him a while ago, and so he cannot know the time. But he senses that it's nearly midnight. He's finally going home, and to sleep. To close his eyes on this train seems impossible though; there's hardly anyone on this car, and so he feels free to start this classic again.
But something stops him; this moment is not the right one. A finicky being sometimes. He plays with the tab sticking out, then pulls the ticket from the back to examine it. The date is August 6th, and it was an unpleasant sort of hot that day. When his fingers touched, beads of water appeared between them and refused to be wiped off. The stick sweat that clung to him didn't offend anyone; it bothered him still. He tries to ignore it. On the train now, the sweat has cooled into faint shadows of the heavy beads. It no longer clings, but he can still feel it. It's so hard to turn the pages with this weight on his fingertips.
His hand runs though an uncombed mass of dark tendrils; sweat worked there too. If he cared about his appearance, he would be mortified. But there is no one to impress on this home-bound train at nearly-midnight; only the mirror in his bathroom when he goes to attempt washing the day off his face. But that's so many stops away, and for now he has the coolness of the yellow pages. He can find a reprieve on this late night special.