The stranger’s skull was an inverted teardrop set with a tarsier’s oblong, expressive eyes, eyes blast-shielded by chunky, industrial glasses. A chiseled obsidian bowl-cut accentuated an already fashion-forward skull shape fairly dramatically, with a twist: the bangs on the left half of the forehead were cut at least three inches shorter than the bangs on the right half.

His features were delicate, feminine, sculpted by master craftsmen under bright lights and powerful magnifying glasses. A slender slip of a John Waters moustache sat atop his light longbow of an upper lip, its partner shielding a slight soul patch in the same dusty fox-toned hue. An everlasting job-stopper curled down his long, delicate neck into the comfort of a lime-green sweater neck-sheath, subdued neatly under a boxy brown jacket.

What really brought all home, though, was his makeup — faux-flesh-toned pancake makeup, accentuated with blush. But instead of using blush-colored blush … he used a metallic silver.

Sort of like this drawing:

He may have been an alien sent to study subway culture in New York City, carefully dressed in a sophisticated costume based on a critical misunderstanding of earth culture. He could have been a transdimensional errand-boy, a silent messenger from one of Haruki Murakami’s bland and terrifying alternate realities.

No matter who he was or where he was from, he was pretty uncomfortable sitting across from me staring at him on the subway, getting up to move after a few stops. I felt bad about it, but I was also thinking “it’s not going to get any better for you down there either, cuz.”

I tried not to stare, but I couldn’t help it. This guy was a creepy tractor beam for my hungry hungry eyeballs, eyes that notice everything different and weird and suck it up like dark matter eats comets.

I get jealous of women sometimes — they get to be beautiful. Sure, it’s expensive hard work … but put me through the same two hours of brushing, dressing, and make-up and the results are just tragic and comical. Or, I imagine they would be.

This guy, though, he was something special. He was beautiful like a polar flower from the wind-whipped plains of Mars: inaccessible, alien, but completely undeniable.

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