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I am wondering if you have seen this photo?

Stiff from a hostel’s mattress, a long slender figure stands feebly in the midst of a nearly empty tube car within London’s Underground. A photo of a man, no longer a boy, backpack attached, approaching the end of a journey. An odyssey with purpose, to break free, to experience Europe, to feel alive, to find oneself; an often perpetuated, if not cliche gesture. The florescent running lights in the car blur in the slight quiver of the tube, casting a golden glow over the shoulders of the young man. The back ground filled with strung out motion seen through the dark car windows. Only one other lonely sole is to be seen huddling in the corner of the car, seemingly in a trancelike state, enveloped in the music proceeding from the white buds found in the ears of the London nocturnal. The photography snapped during those oddly still, precious few moments somewhere between the point at witch night has ended and morning has not yet begun. Yet another ride in a chaotic myriad of train, buss, and boat traverses. A grey t-shirt hangs from the shoulders of the man’s thinned frame, emaciated from little sleep, weeks of endless walking, and living off a diet of coffee and chewing gum. The shirts original print faded and cracked to point of relative obscurity, wrinkled from time spent with the straps from the large knapsack straining the every fiber of the piece of clothing. The man’s jeans sitting a little lower on the hips then before he left and the his belt now resting in a previously unused notch. The once vibrant blue-jeans distressed almost to point at which they could pass off as an expensive designer label; the pants stretched down to running shoes with scuffed and pealing toe caps. The running shoes along with the rest of his body showed from the cruel abuse they have been under over the past weeks. Possessions and money is all but extinct on this parson, all that is presumably left in his drooping burden was a change of dirty laundry, a picture filled digital camera with nearly spent batteries taking its last picture, a note pad filled with events and random never before entertained thoughts, his passport, and a ticket out of Heathrow. Through the shadow cast by the overhang of his sun ravaged, tattered, sweat stained Boston Red Sox cap; and through the clumsy beard finding its place on a thinned face was an indifferent look and a piercing, exhausted stare. The eyes windows to some of Europe’s finest sights: the romantic beauty of the Eiffel Tower, the quiet wonder of the Vatican, the horrific mortality of Auschwitz, the enigmatic marvel of Stonehenge, and now the heart of the fog beleaguered ancient city of London; and yet his eyes pervade nothing of these sights. Within the piecing black stare a certain quiet confidence comes through the gloss of the photo; an unspeakable, untamable confidence stemming from, for the first time, truly coming to know...