Another Timeline

The guy on the sidewalk in front of the restaurant with the beard and the red plaid hunter's hat looks mildly uncomfortable in the group of freshly scrubbed young people he's with. He's probably the same age as the rest of them but he looks different, and he seems to watch the end rituals of brunch as if from a distance.

I used to wear a beard like this guy, dressed like him too, and I used to sort of stand apart from whatever crowd I was with, but at some point I stopped being like that. I see him standing there, a possible present from a discarded past.