The Orange Hands Man

     He was standing on the bustling street corner before a cross walk whose black screen was aglow with the angry,  red silhouette of a hand outstretched, holding back would be crossers. He was old and small and bearded, happily so, with a touch of jovial mischief about his face. His eyes were like deep wells filled to the brim with cement, unseeing but full of life and wonder. He was content, his demeanor almost tranquil, yet within there was a fire still burning, a gale blustering about creating a mad haze of  boy-like excitement for the prospects the world had to offer, but he just couldn't reach them.
     The golden light of restaurant fronts cast his shadow on the ground. He studied it and felt taller, greater, larger than the world itself. He studied people in the windows, on the streets, the sidewalks, the cars slowing to a stop at the intersection where he stood. They were each special. He knew this. He saw their hearts in their eyes, read their lives upon their faces and understood them. He could feel them, these lives, within his fingers, palms, within his hands. And his hands were orange, bright orange like the neon sign above the dirty tattoo parlor three blocks down, flickering on and off in the night indecisively. And every time he would catch a glimpse of his hands it would remind him, remind him of the wonder of the world and the people in it.
     His hands were his memory. They were the source of all his feelings, his anger, his happiness, his sadness, his love. For everything he did, his hands were colored. They had been orange for years, glowing strongly, brilliantly, in the night of the streets, through the maroon gloom, the black alleys, the dark edges of the city, constant companions.
     Each passerby was different as he stared them in the eye, each with their own problems, issues, fears, hopes, and dreams. They were all recipients of his maddeningly yellow smile, the creases nestled about his eyes, the lines on his knowing face. And he would lift his orange hands to his chest and wave them, his palms facing the onlookers, spreading the color, the life, the joy, the message from his heart and his mind. The orange hands man loves everybody and he wants everybody to know.