Eventually, it would become apparent.
The decay of his teeth, the dull and brittle character of his hair, the shadows under his eyes.
But while something beat within, and while there was somewhere to be, and something to do, he would be the bridge across the gaps, his tired eyelids would flutter open like the wings of a migrating bird, knowing that to sink and rest would mean plunging headlong, and forever, into a deep blue from which there was no return...
Tempting, that deep blue (and funny how that word "tempt" implied "time"), but it would have to wait for another day to claim him.
It would have to wait for the eventuality of his apparency, the inevitability of his collapsing holographic illusion of a life.