Image: Old Age, Adolescence, Infancy (The Three Ages), Salvador Dali, 1940

I was standing outside of the community center near Chinatown earlier today, with some minutes to kill before my volunteer tutoring session began with a student.

An old Chinese man, possibly in his 80s, walked towards me hurriedly while glancing over his shoulder several times. A large group of schoolchildren emerged the same way he had come.

He suddenly darted, as well as an eighty-year-old man could dart, behind the utility pole a few feet away from where I stood, and grinned at me from under his hood. Pointing to the buzzing group of schoolchildren approaching us, he said to me, giddily, "my granddaughter. Surprise her."

He attempted to hide behind the pole until he spotted his granddaughter, and then revealed himself like a magic trick, beaming down at her with his goofy grin as she recognized him in surprise. As she disappeared into the community center along with the other children, he waved, and then continued his slow, solitary walk down the cold, empty street.