I step out onto the platform and let the sheer momentum of the crowd propel me to the escalators. Everybody is walking fast, every one of us lost in our respective worlds. Those of us who are not content to hang our heads and stare at our feet gaze at the oncoming commuters across the void of this vast, underground station. We are, at the same time, the audience and the exhibit.
On a day like this, I like coming out to town alone. Walk the streets, lost in my own sonic bubble. Thinking and feeling while trying to find the words. Browse a bookstore. Or write at a cafe. Nurse a coffee over cigarettes and watch as a kaleidoscope of customers come and go. They are almost always couples or groups of friends. I see a girl, her eyes brimming with affection as she gazes at her boyfriend, and the sight makes me smile inside. But why are they hardly talking?
“It’s good to be alone sometimes,” you said. I cannot agree more. Maybe this girl and her guy should, too.
All this feels familiar. If I close my eyes and image the temperature has just dipped by 15 degrees, it feels almost like I am home, only that the lingo, the faces, the dressing styles, and the mannerisms are all wrong.
I miss that city so much. The people, the places… no one should have to miss them so much.
3 Comments
where were you then? melbourne?
Taipei. :)
I can never get enough of taipei :D