One time this happened...

As I fumble for the door handle at the crowded subway cafe, I'm hit with the overwhelming aroma of yesterday's coffee. I try to subtly jockey closer to the condiment station, desperate for a distraction from the awkward encounter earlier – the coworker who, for some reason, insisted on buying me a latte after a heated team-building exercise.

Sweat accumulated in neat beads on the vending machine as I leaned in to retrieve a pack of stale gum. I hated mornings in shopping malls – everyone else's early alerting brightness was amplified in me, making it impossible to gauge the time on my wristwatch.

In the fluorescent glow of the food court, I spill soup on my tie for the third time this week. A young girl in sweatpants points, unsure if she should intervene.

As a stranger, you don't usually see the little things about a place, like the way its tiles are unevenly aligned or the flickering fluorescent lights that seem to mock the idea of 'daylight saving'. But I noticed them all when I spent a weekend sleeping on benches here, at this station nobody calls home.

My sneakers squeaked on the polished floor as I awkwardly juggled a wad of tickets, a thermos, and my backpack in line for the Ferris wheel. I was desperate for a birthday pic to post, not for my social media following's sake, but because last year's embarrassing attempt looked suspiciously like a middle school yearbook photo from an inbred relative.

Fumbling with my bag's straps as we board the rickety train, a woman accidentally knocks into me from nowhere, and I'm face to face with an old photograph of a forgotten wedding. Her confused expression matches my own as I hand it back without a word – for a few fleeting seconds, the crowded carriage becomes utterly silent.