Sitting down, I look at the people on this uptown train. There are so many mid-aged married couples here, holding hands, rings clearly visible, talking to each other.
Looking at each other in brief glances, the smaller things that one can recognize as love. There are at least seven couples here. It’s quite ridiculous.
The number of Millennials getting married every year is always increasing. They were in fact deemed TIME’s happiest and successful generation, helping and revitalizing dying industries, and doing it the entire time with a smile; I’ve never known a Millennial to complain.
There are also arbitrary strangers here talking to one another, people who would have never have known each other except for the decision to ride this train, engaged in conversation that extend past small-talk. I can hear glimpses of it.
The way they talk, their language, the rhetorical skills are all highly impressive. People are so smart these days, they just always know what to say, and how to say it. An old man reads a newspaper.
Classic old man, he probably doesn’t believe in the BulletinBoard™ news-system, it’s 2025, not 1995.
But then again, I also do like to sometimes buy the newspapers myself, if only to look at the pictures, and see the colors, the scene, the people.
No one has their Slate™E-Reader out, the front-lit display often makes people motion sick, and if anything, the train was a communal place, to converse, to listen, or sometimes to just look at your fellow human beings.
Everyone just looks so content, so at peace, so happy, I don’t know what’s wrong with me. Why do I feel so sad? I get off at my stop, it’s 59th St. Columbus Circle.
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