By the elevator at Exit 4 of Shanghai Metro Line 12, where almost no one passes, an unremarkable cleaner is asleep. His work jacket hangs open, exposing his loose stomach. His eyes and mouth droop. His arms hang at his sides. The jacket is already a little grimy; the bamboo broom beside him leans crookedly against the wall.
No one around.
Looking at his expression, I can imagine that even he, under the scorching sun, was nearing his limit. So he took shelter inside the metro station, hiding from the glaring light, catching the coolness of the air conditioning for a moment, and leaned against the cool floor and wall and fell asleep.
I looked again at his hair — pale and graying — and felt something soften in me. I walked past him and got on the escalator.
Who knows how many elderly people, to make a living, choose to do this kind of grueling work in their seventies and eighties. However they look, they are working people at the bottom of society, and they deserve respect.
After going up the escalator, my mom said we hadn’t arrived yet, so I went back down into the metro station, escaping the blazing sun, enjoying the cool air conditioning.
Just as I was about to go up the escalator again, I brushed past an unremarkable figure.
He looked a little familiar. I looked at his jacket, now fastened up, at his exhausted but still resolute eyes, and at the bamboo broom he was leaning on. I stepped slowly off the escalator and watched him walk out of the shadow, into the harsh and blazing light, moving forward without hesitation.