Three People

Number one:
A man sits on the steps of his front porch.
They are old, worn down
so is he
They creak and groan, I'd imagine
as someone cautiously steps on to each one.
They groan in discomfort, no longer able to hold the weight
you've placed upon them
The man groans, too.
The paint is chipping off the stairs, revealing bare wood, swollen and dark with years of rain. The house is likewise, falling apart at the seams, paint chipping, wood rotting, a window on the second story broken. In its prime, it was adorable. "Cute as a button," people would say as they passed. Then they'd go on and occasionally, maybe dream of living in a house just as adorable. With a lovely porch, a swing hanging by the door, flowered curtains in all the windows. No one would include the young man in their fantasy, though. He was just as adorable as the house, but he didn't fit in their dreams. They did not want him.
Now, as the man sits, he creaks and groans. Hands in pockets, face contorted into a grimace, a wince of pure agony, he cries for hours on end. Silently, drily, he cries. He cries for the paint that's chipped away, for the broken glass in the window on the second story, for the stairs that wail louder than he ever has, and for the people, none in particular, that passed him by and kept him from their dreams.

Number two:
She trots in her rubber boots, hands clenched. The actions is strange, indeed, but can be explained by no other means except trotting. Like a horse, proud and regal, she ambles down the sidewalk. She is not dressed for exercise, she just felt like trotting, horse-like.
And then I see her face, her hands. Eyes wide and empty, her mouth is pursed, but open as though she had just lost the words perched on her lips. Her face is marked by years of worrying, of laughing and crying. Rays of lines spread from her eyes, concentric half-circles cup her sunken sockets. Her forehead looks almost like a pasty layered cake, white and dusty with lines, parallel to each other, one on top of the next. The cake, this geologic marvel of compressed sandstone, is underscored by two red arches, penciled in thin and wavering, as though with shaky hands.
Her hands now are clenched. White with pressure, they look like marble sculptures fixed to the ends of her coat sleeves. They pump back and forth like counterweights, keeping her trot at a steady pace.
Hair springs out of her black hood, kinky and red, like sprais of blood frozen in midair. Or maybe like those holiday head bands with springs on them and little plastic symbols at the ends. They bob and wobble as you move your head and you feel plain old ridiculous in them.
She doesn't, though. She keeps her gaze forward, her fists pumping, her legs continuing their determined trot.
I pass her in a second; she's not even going very fast. I glance back at her and look into her eyes, like holes leading all the way back to what she is running from.

Number three:
She looks like her face is made of slabs of dried mud; the wrinkles in her face are deep and dark, dividing her expression into thin, layered sections.
The image of a stack of mud slabs is contradicted by her bone structure. Sharp cheeks and a dastardly chin extrude from her face. Her nose is long and hooked and her eyes are dark, hidden behind a Prominent Brow. She is taller than me by nearly a head. Her shoulders are broad and, when she says "Good morning," I swear her voice is that of a man's. I imagine she's some tired old queen or some man who's been taking hormones for longer than they can remember. And then I berate myself for how illogical I'm being. For how old she is, there's no way she's anything I'd expected her to be. Thinking reasonably, I decide that she is just a freak, some manly woman who was only this close to growing a beard.
And then you say, "She's way too old to be taking a walk." I mumble agreement, but don't mention my mental tangent.