Faceless

Faceless
©2000 Ben Lynch

Aimen was just another part of the rat race.
A horde of people that went about their lives to satisfy themselves alone. Never caring, never bothering to care about someone else who seemed less important than they were.
He stood at the corner of his block, waiting for the 1:10pm. It was another day of sun, and the city was well into the rush by this time. Countless people walked past him as he stood and waited for his bus, briefcase in hand.
He looked around and noticed one thing about the stream of people flowing past him. One thing they all looked like.
Faceless.
It no longer mattered if you had a face in this city. It just mattered that you existed. At least that’s what it looked like. No one made a point of acknowledging anyone else’s face at least.
No one said hello to anyone else. They wouldn’t concern themselves with such useless behavior.
In a way, it was understandable. There were around 20 million people in the city. Walking past thousands of faceless people. Weaving in and out of the bodies of the thousands of people. Sharing space with thousands of people.
Being one of those thousands.
Aimen felt sad in a way. He was raised in a town, about 100 miles out of the city. There everyone knew everyone. You simply couldn’t walk down the street without seeing someone you knew.
And when you met, the interactions were always polite and courteous. A wave, a smile, a quick bout of toilet talking, before walking off and finding someone else you knew.
When growing up many people that he didn’t know greeted Aimen. These people, however, knew Aimen. They would always comment on his height or his school grades, before telling him to say hi to his parents and walking off.
Often Aimen would have entire conversations with people he didn’t know. Not really didn’t know, as such, rather forgotten.
They were people who were friends of the family or long lost cousins and aunties who delighted in cheery cheek pulling or the patting of his head.
All that aside however, people were still friendly.
Even if you didn’t know someone, you would say hello to them. If driving you would honk, if jogging you would wave and if walking you would nod and throw them a quick “G’day”.
Everyone respected everyone else.
In the city such things were unheard of.
As if to re-enforce his view, Aimen looked across the street to witness an example of city life. A woman was standing by the wall of a bank, smoking and holding a sausage roll, when one of the thousands of faceless people ran into her arm. She dropped her sausage roll and cigarette whilst the man just walked on.
He made no attempt to apologize. He made no attempt to help her pick it up. And he certainly made no attempt to buy her a new one.
He simply offered a quick turn of the head as he sped off into the flock of people.
No one around her offered to help either. They were too busy with breathing and walking. Too busy with deadlines and business.
Slowly the bus lurched over the hill towards the stop. A few other people had joined him at the corner by this time. He was sure that a few of them intended to push in front of him.
One such man made small, stepping movements every so often, gingerly creeping forward like continental drift.
Soon the bus arrived to their position and stopped with a horrifying squeal of its brakes. The whole bus jolted forward as it did so, and the faceless souls on the transport simply bobbed with its movements.
The doors opened with that familiar hiss, and the faceless bus driver greeted them. He was always in a hurry to get going, despite the fact that he never got anywhere. He would simply finish this route, delivering people to their destination day in day out, before starting all over again.
A tedious boring job to which he had been come accustomed. To which he had lost his sense of purpose.
And his face.
Aimen tried to step up on the bus as the small crowd around him pushed to beat him to the punch. A few students with walkmans and folders nudged in front of him, racing up the stairs. Business people swooped in like vultures as Aimen let the slightest gap slip before him.
It was like fighting a river, trying to hold on to the door rails as people cascaded up and down the stairs.
Despite being the first person there, he was the last to board. The driver had decided that too much of his wasteful time was being wasted, and shut the doors.
A woman ran up to them as they hissed shut, but she was simply denied access to this moving collection of people. She raised her hands and banged on the glass, as the driver continued forward.
He had no care factor for the woman. He just drove off leaving her brooding and angry, waiting whole five minutes for the next bus.
And so Aimen stood in the bus, holding the handrail for lack of seating, while he and the fifty or so other faceless people shuttled off into the vast endless city.


Promptly at 5:30, Aimen was out the doors of his office. A stream of other people flew past him, all in the same rush to get home again.
Many of these people he didn’t know, despite working in the same building as they did.
For the best part, he didn’t want to know them unless he had to.
The feeling was mutual.
Stepping off the bus, Aimen hurried towards his apartment building.
The red, rough-textured stone offered only a mild sense of location as he stepped up the small flight of stairs that met him when he returned.
He almost didn’t notice the man at the base of the steps. He could have been there for years, but Aimen wouldn’t even have realized he existed.
The man was very old. He was wearing dirty, ragged light brown pants, and a faded black shirt riddled with holes.
Behind his back was a bag, with what appeared to be newspaper and a jumper. His feet were not protected by shoes, and were torn up and bleeding. He had several nasty blisters on them that sat like small peaks, riddled with puss and decay.
His arms seemed to be covered in wrinkles and dirt. One of his fingers was bent back at an odd angle. It must have been broken, as it was green in colour.
His face was possibly the worst of all
It was wrinkled and old, obviously, but also dirty, pussy and sad. He had a white beard with moustache and a hat over it all. It was an old fisherman’s hat, torn and green.
His eyes held all the sadness on the planet. They seemed dead in a way. No person Aimen had ever come across had eyes like these. They were brown, with fold upon fold of black underneath them. Like someone who hadn’t slept in weeks.
He stared at the ground before him without concern. He had nowhere to go, nothing to do and saddest of all, no one that cared.
Aimen clutched his suitcase and opened the door to his building, before stepping inside slowly, blocking of the view of the man with the door.
He took the lift up to the third floor and walked out onto the shaggy old carpet. Moving down the hallway with its chunky cream coloured cement and stains, he wondered about the man.
And for the first time in a while, Aimen felt lucky. Not because of who he was, but who he wasn’t.


TV provided no stimulation for Aimen what so ever. He had long since finished his Chinese, and now sat on the couch, clutching his beer gut.
His chin was folded into his neck in the laziest fashion. Like his head was too heavy to hold.
Aimen reached up to the TV and switched it off. He scratched his butt with one hand whilst straightening his cruddy singlet with the other. He was wearing blue boxer shorts that his ex-girlfriend had given him before they broke up.
His apartment was at the end of the third hall. At the opposite end was the elevator.
Aimen felt he had a good room, as his window opened to look out into the city, whilst other’s simply opened to see the adjacent building’s brick wall.
It wasn’t a fantastic view, Aimen thought as he peered out the window, but it wasn’t too bad either.
He smelt the smoggy city air and looked up trying to find stars. He thought he could make out one or two, but the rest was probably blocked by the pollution.
Aimen looked down to see the old man still in the stairs. It was 10:00pm now, and the man was stretched out on the apartment buildings steps. He had covered his old dirty body with newspaper and was trying to make himself comfortable.
Aimen noticed something that almost made him wretch. As the old man was turned on his side, his bottom was showing. And his pants were soiled with his own excretions.
Aimen felt so sad for the old man. He was too tired and old to try and find a toilet.

A couple walked up the footpath towards the apartment block. Aimen recognized that they stayed at this block. They were on the second floor from memory.
They were both dressed in dining attire as the held hand in hand. The man was big and butch, with a blonde mullet that made him look like a 70’s gladiator. The woman was the opposite, thin as a rake, with a tight dress that was easily a size too small.
As they approached the step the big man looked down at the old fella.
He turned his head away as he took the sight of the crusty old man in. The homeless man didn’t seem to be bothered them.
“Get out of our way you old fart!” The butch guy yelled.
The old man just lay there. He was shaking Aimen thought. He sat up very slowly, covering his head as he did so.
“Now fuck off away from my damn step!” The gladiator roared at him.
The couple stepped past him, stopping only once to turn and kick his back.
The old man jolted in pain as he reached behind him. His face looked up and he was wincing and gasping as he rived in agony.
The kick must have hurt him a lot.
Tears filled his eyes and he turned and looked up the building at Aimen on the third floor.
His face once again held all the sadness in the world. He seemed to be pleading with Aimen. To help him, help him in his misery.
Aimen felt his heart turn over as he looked down into his eyes. The eyes of a man rejected by his fellow people. The eyes of an unwanted outcast. A poor helpless old fool.
Aimen just turned his gaze and closed the curtains.


Looking into the mirror, just before retiring, Aimen wondered what it would be like for the old man. He looked at the pitiful reflection of himself. At the short brown hair, the green eyes, the face that desperately needed shaving, and wondered.
It was then that he didn’t deserve it. He shouldn’t be seeing this no matter how pitiful it was. Like the thousands of other people that swarmed in the city.
He didn’t deserve a face.


Days past, and every morning and evening Aimen was forced to look into the old mans eyes. Every time he pushed thoughts back as the old man pleaded with him.
The man rarely moved from the steps. Once every now and then, someone would throw him a dollar. His sad eyes would light up a little as he walked off slowly to put food in his mouth.
On one night Aimen looked out the window, having nothing better to do. The old man was still there, lying again on the steps.
A group of kids, numbering about eight came walking up the road. They all wore loose clothing and caps and seemed to be talking about a song or a TV show or something. They were quoting lines as they went.
From the third story, Aimen could make out that they were about 15 or 16, and one person in the middle of the group did the most talking. There were one or two girls amongst them. The boys next to them had their hands wrapped around their butts, and they kissed every two meters or so.
The old man was sleeping as they walked passed him. Suddenly the group stopped, about a meter past. They all seemed to be looking at the old man.
Aimen knew that this wasn’t good. He had a feeling that they were going to do something bad.
The one who appeared to be the leader, the one who talked the most stepped up to the man.
As he stepped gingerly forward, he kicked the man in his legs. He woke up slowly and crunched into a ball as he saw the kids.
The leader then felt into his jacket pocket. The old man shook with fear as the kid searched around.
Aimen felt his blood run cold as her fiddled around. What if he drew a gun? Aimen thought.
Moments passed, and Aimen gripped the windowsill with his fingernails, shaking and tensing as he did so. The old man made no attempt to run. At his age and fitness level, he wouldn’t make it far before the kids ran him down and cut his throat with a knife.
Aimen thought of all the news reports he had seen various people had been killed in the street. And he thought that this old man might become one of those statistics.
The youth pulled it out.
A dollar.
He had pulled out a dollar.
Aimen felt his pulse slow down and he saw it. The old man stopped shaking a little and his eyes went wide with anticipation. The youth waved the dollar from side to side in front of the man’s face, laughing as he did so.
The kids behind him laughed hysterically as their leader teased this defense-less old man. The man bobbed like a dog as the dollar was waved before him. The boy turned to face his group when suddenly the man made a swipe for the dollar.
The group pointed and shouted as he did and the boy turned round, pulling the dollar away just before the old man could get it.
The boy was furious now as he looked down at the quivering old man. He took a step forward and raised his hand, shouting at the man.
“NO!” Aimen screamed. But it was too late.
He watched as the boy brought his hand down across the old man’s face. The old man's neck jolted violently, taking the impact, and his body crumpled forward into his knees.
The boy had hit him. Hard. Very Hard.

The group pointed up at Aimen as they heard him yell at them.
“Quick c’mon man!” They yelled to their leader.
The leader began to run a way, but he stopped. As if he hadn’t already done enough to the old man, he pushed him off the step and stole his bag, before giving his neck a kick and running off after his mates.
“Aww fuck this shit stinks!” Aimen heard him yell as he disappeared out of sight, down the road.
Aimen began to run towards his door, hoping for once to help the old man. He grabbed his jacket as he ran past the table and headed for the door.
He made it, still while putting the jacket on, and slid the chain lock off. He turned the handle and opened the door as behind him the phone rang.
Ring Ring.
Aimen stopped, looking at the phone.
Ring Ring.
He looked at the door.
Ring Ring.
He looked down the hall, towards the elevator.
Ring Ring.
And he picked the phone up.
“Hello?” He said, in a hurry. The voice spoke to him.
“Yeah hey Mum! Look I hate doing this to you, but I’ll have to call you back!” He listened as his mother told him that his brother was expecting a baby. Normally he would have been excited, but he had to help the old man.
His mother talked and talked, appearing not to have listened to him as she rambled on.
Aimen looked at the clock above the door and tried to hurry her up.
A minute passed, and she was still talking.
Eventually she hung up, and Aimen ran to the window again.
He looked down onto the stairs, searching for the old man.
He was gone.


The next few days bared no change to his life whatsoever. He went to work day in day out. He came home, slept went to work. Came home, slept went to work.
He hadn’t seen the old man in several days now. Aimen had a terrible feeling about it all.
He felt like he let himself down as much as he had let the old man down. And he was punished for it.
Every night all he had on his mind was the old man. In every dream he could see his wrinkled face, his shaggy clothes and his bleeding feet.
But scariest of all was the mans eyes. The sadness in them would simply engulf Aimen with every look.
They screamed at him.


A day later, Aimen was shaving in front of the mirror. He spread his face with cream and began to shave. It didn’t take him long to finish, and he splattered his face with water when done, before patting it down with a towel.
When he pulled the towel back, the old man was there.
Watching him.
Aimen jumped back at the reflection. His reflection was the old man.
His heart was pounding as he lifted his hand to the wrinkly old face that stared back at him. The face just looked back at him, with sad sad eyes.
Aimen shook his head and closed his eyes. When he opened them the old man was gone. And his own reflection stood there.
Even after an hour had past, Aimen was still haunted by what had happened. Haunted.
But it didn’t end there.
Aimen was sitting at the dining table, drinking a cup of tea when there came a knock at his door. At first he didn’t notice it. He was deep in thought. But a heavy thump soon shook him out of it.
He gingerly stepped over to the door and looked in his little peephole. Things always looked odd through that hole. It was always funny to see your relatives rock on up and have giant bendy heads.
On more than one occasion Aimen would open the door laughing, simply because of the image of his visitor he had seen.
He put his eye up to the whole and peeked through. At first he saw no one there and just assumed it was some of the kids from down the hall.
The advantage of Aimen’s door was that you could see the entire hallway as you looked through it. You couldn’t knock on his door and hide.
So when Aimen couldn’t see anyone in the peeper, he assumed it was the kids and they had hidden back in their rooms.
He was convinced of it actually.
Until there came another knock.
This time, Aimen jumped up quickly to catch them out, and his mind began to spin as he looked through it. His blood ran cold as he looked at the person there, watching him with sad eyes.
The old man.
CRACK! The lightning went as it began to rain outside.
Aimen jumped back from the door and began to backpedal, running clumsily into his couch. The door continued to thud as the old man slammed on it.
Aimen was terrified by now, and ran into his kitchen. He turned onto the lino floor and looked over to his fridge.
The magnets, the calendar, the business cards.
And the old man.
Aimen fell backwards, trying to grip the wall as he slid down it, to his floor. The old man walked at him slowly as those eyes looked into his soul. Deep into his soul.
Aimen closed his eyes and began to breathe heavily.
And passed out.


When he woke, he found himself on the floor of his kitchen. It was early morning yet no light poured through the window. It was raining.
Aimen shook himself off and hopped up as he realized he was late for work.
Moments later he was roughly dressed and heading down the elevator with briefcase in hand.
He rushed down the final hallway, out the door and onto the steps.
The old man was there.
He was leaning against the railing, with his eyes shut. His left arm flicked a little.
Aimen took the longest route around him, never allowing his eyes to move from him. He was still terrified after last night. It could have been a dream, but it could have been real.

Having successfully stepped around him, Aimen ran towards the bus stop. He could still catch the 9:25, he thought.
And then he stopped. His pace slowed to an eventual halt. And he turned around.
He knew what he had to do. He had let it go on for too long.
He turned and walked up to the old man.
Aimen leaned down and shook his shoulder.
“Old timer?” He said softly.
The man woke up with a startle. Aimen held the $10 note up to him and his eyes widened. He reached his hand out but suddenly pulled it back. He shook with fear and covered his eyes.
Aimen noticed the trail of fluid that came from his pants leaking onto the step. The old man was terrified.
And then he remembered what the kids had done to him. How they had tricked him. So he left the note next to the man and jogged off, just as the bus was coming over the hill.


Aimen returned home and noticed the old man was gone again. He was slightly happier now, as he had helped him. The day was still miserable and the rain was heavier now.
He ran inside and up the lift, collapsing on his lounge the second he got inside.
It was not long after that he drifted off into a nap.


A few hours later Aimen woke. The rain was coming down heavily now and the sound against his roof had startled him. Outside there was quite a bit of noise from somewhere down the road.
He got up and looked out the window. Down the street he noticed the stack of people, who were leaving the theatre. There must have been a play or movie on tonight. There were heaps of people leaving. They all got a shock as they came out. It was a big storm outside.
There was still a light, being daylight saving. He looked at the stream of people walking passed his apartment block when something caught his gaze. The old man was writhing on the steps.
His chest was clutched and his legs outstretched, tensely.
He was dieing.
Aimen took no time in running towards his door. The phone rang behind him as he ran into the hallway but he didn’t care.
Some people looked at him oddly as he bolted down the hallway, but he didn’t care.
Only one thing mattered right now. The old man.
He reached the bottom floor and went skidding out of the elevator.
Soon he was at the main door, and running down the steps.
The man was jerking everywhere, his eyes wide with fear. Those sad sad eyes had a new look as his body shook violently.
Aimen knelt down and placed his hand behind his neck. People streamed past, sharing a quick glance at them before moving off.
The rain was falling on their heads as they remained there on the step. They were both soaking and cold.
“Help him!!” Aimen yelled as the people walked by.
Aimen couldn’t believe it. They just didn’t care.
“Help him you FUCKS! Help HIIIM!!!!” But the people just turned their noses up.
Aimen was crying and clutching the man’s neck.
The wind pushed hard against his face as his tears were forced out.
His other hand was outstretched as he willed for people to help the dieing old man.
The people continued to stream by.
The man’s heart was slowing, Aimen could feel it. The pulse in his neck was descending.
“Hellp hiiiim” Aimen pleaded as tears blocked his eyes, and saliva flung from his mouth in a final attempt.
“Call an ambulance. Help HIMMM! Help Help Help…” He trailed off.
Suddenly Aimen was frightened as he looked at the people passing him.
They didn’t have faces. There was just smooth skin below their hair. No nose, no eyes, no mouths.
Just like mannequins walking the streets. Their heads turned as they glimpsed at the two on the steps yet they still had no faces.
He watched as children walked by. As couples walked by. As men and women walked by. Black men, white men, Chinese women, Chinese Men, old people and teens.
It was all in slow motion as they simply walked by in the cascading rain.
“Help him.” Aimen mouthed slowly, still as no one listened.
Soon they became just faceless blurs of colour, walking by. The rain pounded against the back of his head as he cried and cried.

Suddenly he felt something squeeze his hand.
He looked down as the old man stopped shaking. His eyes met Aimen’s eyes and they stared for what seemed like a lifetime.
Everything was silent.
There was definitely some pressure on Aimen’s hand as he held the man. But very little.
The old man’s face was suddenly warmer. The corner of his mouth began to twitch slightly as he looked up at Aimen. His heart was beating very slowly now.
His mouth twitched a little more.
His hand loosened its grip a little more.
His heart slowed down more and more.
The rain streamed past his old fishing hat, past his eyes.
His happy eyes. The eyes that no longer searched the face of the planet for sadness. The eyes that had found some light amongst a mountain of darkness. The eyes that no longer feared anything.
And he smiled.
The old man smiled.
His eyes rolled back and the grip loosened completely. His heart had all but completely stopped.
Thump Thump.
Thump…. Thump.
Thump……… Thump
Thump.
And the old man fell limp.

Aimen cried and cried as he held the dead man in his arms. But there was something that told him not to worry. An inner feeling that not only thanked, him but calmed him too.
He felt privileged to be holding the old man.

The dirty, ugly old man that had died with the two most important things in life.
The two things that many people lacked. That the faceless blurs that streamed past them lacked. That the people that ran about their busy lives as faceless, boring worker bees lacked. The two things that should be the goal of any one person, over money fame or selfless wants.

A face.
And a friend.