You wake up and go to the subway. How many people do you pass by every time? How much time passes by you during your five minute journey downtown? How many of those people are like you, worried that the world is going to hell and sick of their unfulfilled lives? How much will you miss those five minutes a year or maybe ten years later? How many more mornings of walking alone in a sea of people await you?
The escalator moves slowly upwards, carrying a large crowd towards the start of their new day. When at the top they start running towards the exits. Where are we running to? What are we hurrying for? Why so much bustle for things that give us no true satisfaction? Why do we push and shove the ones around us in the race towards nothing spectacular? What do we really care about?
You float around, alone and silent, and you watch the world turn and churn, and in the clarity supplied by the feeling of not belonging you see what the world truly means. How every person walking by you has a face, a glimmer in their eye, a trace of empathy, overshadowed by this race that we are taught to run no matter what.
A dead pigeon lies stiff on a marble bench. People walk by it without noticing. Even the street sweeper picks up the garbage yet leaves it behind. No one sits on that bench despite the lack of seating space. An elderly woman holds a box of baby rabbits at her feet, selling them as cheap as possible. They dig into one and other for warmth. A sick dog begs for food near a group of old men reading newspapers. It is invisible and you feel privileged to be the only one to see it. A lone woman with dead eyes stands next to the fountain, half of her face bruised and her cheeks flushed. No one dares to look at her as if they are ashamed of her misery.
Across the fountain you see me. I am the dead pigeon. The rabbits. The dog. The bruised woman. I am everyone you see on your way to the subway. The gypsy selling flowers at the corner. The old man asking for change. The three-legged cat sleeping near a sewer. The divorced mother of three that sits next to you in the train. The kid without an eye that cheers himself up with thinking he’s like a pirate. I am all the stories that people do not want to know about. All those five minutes that you will miss dearly in the future. All those worried, hopeless people. All those cold mornings.
I’m not part of the race. You come sit besides me on the marble edge. You look into me and we both become invisible. For you the race is over. You grab my hand and we fall into it, like a fever.