things move around

I say my friend is elderly, but this is mere speculation. So far as I can tell, he could be any age, in the first humiliating flush of youth or the final humiliating flush of decrepitude. He is, if you will, ageless. The skin of his face is at once unblemished and careworn, like a very fine leather; his eyes are as sprightly as an imp’s and as impassive and graven as the knots in an ancient yew tree; his hands are at one moment fresh and supple and lithe, capable of pulling down saplings, wringing the necks of birds or caressing a lover and the next moment fragile, slightly translucent, the sinew and ligaments faintly visible like the innards of a boiled prawn.