Shoe Shine

An unremarkable grey man kneels before a wooden chair. The in-congruence hadn’t struck me until now. The chair, edges warm and smoothed from years of use. His clothes, clean but worn, a workers clothes. A blackened, stiff leather pinafore covers his chest and thighs. It ties around his still slender waist, and moves in opposition to his strong shoulders as they flex and roll with every movement. He kneels before a suited businessman, the dull, polish soaked pinafore grazes the highly polished municipal granite floor. The backdrop is a sheer, darkly tinted glass scraper. It dominates the scene from every angle, until your eyes return to the unremarkable grey man.