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There is something about a train pulling up into the subway and slowing to a stop that makes me feel rather like a little metal ball in a roulette wheel; in which car will I ultimately come to rest? Will I join the teens in party clothes, coming home to Jersey from a night of jubilant clubbing, tired and satisfied? Or will I sit in silence across from the fat man reading the newspaper, grunting over stories of foiled terrorist plots, and next to the nervous man in a National Guard T-shirt, his 7-year-old son asleep on his shoulder? In this rather crowded car, or that nearly empty one, or the one where the conductor occasionally pops out to make an announcement via an arcane, complicated, and inefficient intercom?

Something in me hopes for a friend, most times. I peer through the windows as they go more and more slowly by, looking for the person who is alone, who looks receptive, who isn’t holding a book or flipping through songs on their ipod. I take a few casual steps this way or that to increase my chances of alighting in the car with the best prospect.

Most of the time the train ride is over before I think of the first thing to say.

-Alissa