There was a time when these shops (the long-standing ones anyway) were quite familiar. You had a spot not too far away, and if the commute lined up, you'd shop for groceries here. It's just a small one, but it had enough. Passing it now, you see the cool can case flush with little drinks and you realize you're completely fucking parched. You dip in, snag one, do a lap through the store picking things up and putting them back on the shelf while you slide the drink into your coat. You wait for a throng of exiting grocery shoppers and filter out amidst them. There was a place you used to visit and rest here that you loved, a turn between two shops, behind a support column, a door usually unlocked (still unlocked), a few stairs down, a few back up, then a corridor, likely for service. At the end are a trio of doors and through the one on the left is a square spiral of stairs and at the bottom is a doorway with the door ripped off the hinges, and through it a dark length that after a while of wandering butts into another door, still unlocked! Through it is more darkness, but in the distance is a patch of light, bigger than you remember it. Perched next to it is a chair, looking down through scaffolding to the 1's platform, bustling with people as per usual. You sit down, pound the drink's cap off against the metal seat of the chair, watch for a while. An old looking man is asleep on one of the benches. A woman sprints out of the elevator pushing a stroller, thinking she's missed the train that hasn't come yet. Three teens in long black sleeves hunch together around what from above you can tell is a screen. A man checks his watch. Another cat-eared girl stows a book in her bag, leaning forward and looking into the tunnel. The ground around you roars, trembling as the train arrives, its sleek brown body stretching beyond your field of view. People come and go, and the train rumbles away. You take another swig, leaning back. As your eyes adjust to the dark, you notice other patches of light off in the distance. The silhouettes of more chairs, scaffolding, wires, other shapes. Another swig and a glance to your immediate left reveals a low stack of messy notebooks. You set the drink on the floor and pick up the notebook on top, open it. The scrawls are hard to parse, but the more you look the more you see. It seems to be largely observational, vivid descriptions. Mundane mundane mundane. There are regular notes in the margin of arrivals and departures. Halfway through this one is a spread of the timetables with delicate arcs sketching patterns in time. In the next notebook is more of the same. In the next one, more of the same. In the next one, half more of the same, half empty, and as you flip through it a few stamped envelopes fall out. One of them catches a machinic breeze and tumbles swooping for a while in the open air of the station until it lands on the ground and under the foot of so many commuters. Maybe you should write a letter. You pull the pen off of your pocket's notebook and click, dragging a few decorative lines around one of the blank pages of this new strangers' book. Another swig. You let the first name that comes to mind spill out, and the words follow. Your pentip lingers after the last line. It feels like you should say more, but nothing comes. You sign off and stare at the tidy little page you've filled. Another swig, the last one. You tear the page out, fold it up, slide it into the envelope, seal it, scrawl on the address. You sit for a while, holding it in your two hands, breathing with your eyes closed. Another rumble, coming. pause. Another rumble, leaving.