The world does not bring everybody together.
When I was a boy, I would take the same train, every weekday, from Surbiton to Wimbledon and I would see the same people and they were often standing at the same spots on the platform. I, on the other hand, would always find a different spot on which to stand and, therefore, different people to look at and when the train came, they all rushed off to find a seat and disappear behind their newspapers.
Of course, I never said "Hello" or "Good morning" to any of these people and nor did they turn to greet me; but what would have happened had we seen each other in a restaurant or a cinema queue? Would one of us have walked over to say, "Don't you recognise me? We see each other every day on platform 1"?
For me, it is precisely meeting but not coming together that makes these strangers on the station platform so memorable. Nonetheless, they remained strangers to me and I to them. And yet, have I not left a mark on them and they on me? Passing one another in such a manner, didn't I afterwards walk where they had walked and didn't I see what they had seen and didn't they afterwards walk where I had walked and didn't they see what I had seen?
We were , indeed, strangers in the night - but perhaps we shared much more than we thought. Perhaps, they had seen what I had seen and I had seen what they had seen, and I would love to now ask them: How was it for you?
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