His hands smelled of coins.

He used bus tickets as book marks. His books were always covered with newspaper - the glossy classifieds section. His fingers were wrinkled and thin and when I held them my hands would get some of the coins smell.

In the night, he snuck into the kitchen and ate icecream; his favourite flavour was coconut. He stuffed peanuts into his pockets, and ate them with extreme relish while looking out of the window. He once told me he liked omlettes more than he liked chocolates and that was saying something.

He would take apart alarm clocks and hair dryers and irons only to put them together eventually. He should have been an engineer. He loved gadgets. His electric shaver is still sitting somewhere in my cupboard, unaware that no-one will care for it with the same intensity again.

If he was here, I'd have shown him my writing. Of all the people I know, he'd be the only one who'd have understood it just the way I'd have wanted him to.