[ WP ] `` Where 's Waldo , Really ? ''

`` Well Tom I'm standing here in Portland where sources say we can finally answer the age old question of: Where. Is Waldo Nooow'' 
 
 John steps through waves of beards and beanies and heads towards a Caribou Coffee. Crowds of bicyclists clip by the camera. 
 
 `` Well Tom the answer has been right under our proverbial noses for... quite a while. Waldo Handford, who's father's been searching for him for over twenty seven years, has been a Portland resident, locals say, for the past fifteeeeen'' 
 
 The reporter opens the glass door into the shop and walks unobstructed toward a rather angst driven thirty- something. 
 
 `` Good morning mister Handford'' 
 
 The scruffy gentleman looked as if he had n't bathed in over twenty years. It explains the rather vacant shop in the latter hours of the afternoon. His eyes carried a crescent of gray beneath them and his lips cracked with every breath. 
 
 `` Morning.'' 
 
 `` Why are you here Mr. Handford?'' 
 
 The troubled stare pierced through the reporter for miles. 
 
 `` I don' know'' 
 
 The reporter's cadence changed. Off camera, his brow had furrowed and his chin sank. 
 
 `` Mr. Handford. You've been missing for over a quarter of a century. Where have you been? And for the sake of the public and your family-'' 
 
 Tears painted Waldo's cheeks. Cheeks that had lost their rose decades ago. Waldo's shock at the words betrayed his initial steely demeanor. 
 
 `` Family.'' 
 
 The word burned his tongue. A thing only the warm and the comforted tend to mention. A part of a vocabulary that was no longer his. 
 
 `` Yes, Mr. Handf-'' 
 
 `` I left. That's all there is to know. I did n't belong there.'' 
 
 The tears ran dry and his eyes returned to a stoic shade. The reporter latched onto the emotion and desperately worded his interrogation. 
 
 `` What was left behind, Mr. Handford?'' 
 
 Waldo took off his cap and warmed his fingers in it. He stared at the tattered remains of the brilliant crimson and cream strip lines that once cohabited the now graying fabric. A breath swept into him as he placed it back atop his stuck, greasy black hair. 
 
 `` Just that name, nothing else.'' 
 
 And at that, Waldo walked.
