I was in the city last week, just for a few days, visiting my niece. It's… a lot, the city. So many people, all sort of rushing, you know? Not like here in Harmony Creek, where if you blink you might miss someone passing by, and even then you probably know their whole family history anyway. But in the city, I was on this… well, it was a subway, I guess. A train, underground. And it was packed. Absolutely stuffed, like a can of sardines, which is a saying my mother used to use, bless her. Everyone was just… pressed together. So many bodies. And I remember looking around, sort of trying to find a face, a pair of eyes, anything. But everyone was just looking down, at their little phones. Their screens were glowing, sort of like a hundred tiny, private campfires in the gloom. And I was standing there, I think I was holding onto one of those straps, sort of swaying with the movement of the train, and I realized… I was completely invisible. Not invisible like a ghost, obviously, but like, I didn't exist in anyone's sphere of perception. Not one person looked up. Not one. It was a kind of anomie, I suppose, that Durkheim wrote about, the sense of disconnect. Or maybe just… modern life. It was a strange feeling. Sort of liberating, in a way, to be unobserved, unburdened by the social contract of recognition, but mostly it was just… really, really lonely. And I thought, isn't that something? All these people, inches from each other, breathing the same air, and yet each one an island, completely cut off. Like we were all in separate little bubbles, even though we were physically touching. And I just kept thinking about old Mrs. Henderson down the road, who, if you don't wave at her when you drive by, will call your cousin to ask if you're feeling alright. Just… so different. I felt this ache, a kind of… a longing, maybe. For something I can’t quite name. Just the sheer, overwhelming, quiet solitude in a crowd of HUNDREDS of people. It makes you wonder, doesn't it? What all those secrets are, behind all those glowing screens. What are they all thinking, what are they hiding? I know I've got my share, tucked away, so I guess everyone else does too. Just feels a bit… empty. Like a grand performance with no audience.