The familiar hum of the train car greets me like an old friend. The doors of the sleek, silver machine open directly in front of me, right where I stand on the 257th red brick from the escalators—a spot I claim every morning. I enter and make my way to my usual seat at the back on the left, beginning my routine of creating a small fortress. I place my backpack and raincoat on the empty chair closest to the aisle, giving the top a satisfied tap. Before the semester started, I tested each of the seven train times that would get me to school within two hours of my first class, aiming to sit in peace on the quietest run. I’m still not sure which would be worse: having to offer the seat next to me to a stranger or telling them no if they asked. The 5:24am train jolts to life again, moving smoothly along the tracks. The rhythmic clatter soothes the flurries rising in my chest as I brace for my 116th day of university life. Visions of my colorfully clad peers cloud my mind—their unpredictable movements tighten my throat. I focus instead on the sound of the tracks, the blur of the city in its shades of gray and gold, and the rhythm of my breathing. Seven minutes tick by, and the train slows to a stop. I hear the ding of the carriage doors as they open at the next station, the predictability of the train’s journey serving as another soothing balm for my rattled nerves. As people board, three minutes pass before we set off again. I glance to my right and dare a peek at the chaos of the open road, where cars zigzag between each other, making my stomach churn. We reach the next station, marking another six minutes gone, only four more stops until it’s my turn to exit. I hear him before I see him: a fit of laughter that’s a strange mix between a roar and a cackle which fills the air. Instinctively, I plug in my earbuds and flood my senses with soothing instrumental music from my pre-downloaded playlist, designed for moments just like this. But it doesn’t help. His laughter permeates the air and soaks into my eardrums. The obnoxious happiness of it makes my lip curl, makes my teeth grit. I can’t help but clench my fingers from the sheer frequency of his laughter. Even if I couldn’t hear him, I can feel him. The hop and sway of his steps as he slowly makes his way down to where I am. My insides knot, my knees pull together. I chant on repeat inside my head: _Please don’t sit next to me._ I chance a peek, my eyes shifting ever so slightly to the left. Relief floods my system, washing all the way down to the tips of my toes, as I see the strange man sit next to someone else three rows up. Now safe to study him from behind, my curiosity gets the better of me. He’s a strange-looking fellow—his hair a tangled mess of gray, his clothes as though picked out in the dark—oddly mismatched and worn. A small brown leather satchel lays tipped over carelessly next to his boots. I miss counting off the next three stops because I can’t pull myself away from observing this unexpected disturbance to my morning routine. His spontaneous, undirected laughter echoes through the compartment, turning heads. The passenger sitting to his left focuses so intently on the view outside the window that his neck looks strained. I do not envy him one bit. At last, the orange flash of autumn maple leaves marking my station prompts me to return to my own mind. I quickly gather my belongings and pace towards the doors. Heat prickles up my spine as I pass the strange man but I do my best to not draw any attention to myself. The doors of the carriage open and I go to make my escape but something comes over me. Curiosity? _Maybe._ Insanity? _More likely._ I turn my head to the right and sneak a peek at the strange man, something within me is compelled to see his face. But what I discover makes my stomach drop—there’s a deadness in his eyes, a distance, a sadness that starkly contrasts with the joyful cadence of his laughter. The two seconds I get to assess him before being shuffled out the door are enough for me to see he’s harmless. Just a lonely old man perhaps trapped in a loop of memories that brings him more joy than pain. Still, his strangeness makes me uneasy, and I find myself praying this will be the last time I see him. Despite my best efforts to immerse myself in the rhythm of university life, the image of the strange man from the train refuses to fade from the edges of my mind. As I walk through the bustling campus, every burst of laughter or sudden noise snaps my attention back to him—the memory of his chuckles echoing in my head like a persistent ghost. In my morning lecture, the professor’s voice drones on about chemical bonds and molecular structures, but my thoughts are stubbornly stuck on the train, on the man whose laughter filled so much space yet seemed so empty. By lunchtime, I’m no closer to shaking the disquiet that has clung to me all day. I pick at my food in the café, surrounded by groups of students who chat and laugh with an ease that feels foreign to me now. Their laughter should be comforting, a normal backdrop to a typical day at school, but it only serves to remind me of him. Each chuckle is a reminder of the sadness I saw in his eyes, the contrast so stark it felt almost palpable. I realise then that it’s not just curiosity that tugs at my conscience—it’s a sense of kinship, an unsettling recognition of something hidden within myself. A marker of the boundaries that I have carefully constructed around my own vulnerabilities. The shared struggle of feeling at odds with expressing complex emotions—at least that what I think he may feel anyway. The pace of the day seems to blur on by, a stream of lectures, methodically written notes and discussions which I navigate mechanically. When the final bell rings, I’m the first to leave, eager to escape the confines of the classroom and the weight of my own rumination. As I step outside, the cool air is a gift from the heavens, a brief respite from the internal chaos that the morning’s encounter has sparked. Walking back to the train station, I can’t help but wonder about the countless private struggles hidden behind the faces of the people I pass by. If a stranger’s laughter could unsettle me so deeply, what other stories were these strangers carrying with them? What burdens were masked by their outward expressions? The train pulls up once more, and I surrender myself back to my routine, determined to leave these muddled thoughts behind. But as I make my way to my seat, laughter fills my world once again and I am struck with the presence of the strange man. My eyes meet his and I can’t help but stare; his mouth lowers to a dip as I gawk at him. _What is wrong with me?_ Somehow I urge my body to move, and with a shake of my head, an uneasy laugh muddled with incoherent apologies slips through my lips. I hurry to my seat flustered, forgetting to build my backpack barricade. More passengers fill the carriage and I feel the seat next to mine dip unexpectedly. I tense up, fearing the strange man had moved to question me about staring at him. But when I turn, it’s not the man; it’s a young woman about my age, with bright red hair and a smile that seemed determined to fight off the gloom outside. She’s dressed in a floral ensemble that stands out vividly against the gray of the train, clutching a large sketchbook to her chest. “Hi, I’m Cassie,” she says with a clarity and friendliness that cut through the ambient noise. “I’ve seen you around the biochem department. Mind if I sit here?” I’m taken aback by her directness but manage a nod. “Uh, sure,” I stammer, and she settles in next to me. Before I can retreat to window-watching, she’s talking again. “You’re in Dr. Hensley’s chemistry class, right? I’m in the arts, but I’ve seen some of your displays on the department bulletin boards.” “Yes, that’s right. Biochemistry,” I reply, feeling an unexpected ease in talking to her, despite my usual reserve. Our light conversation is abruptly interrupted by that now-familiar laughter that starts up once again. Cassie looks past me toward the source—the man sitting alone, his mirth filling the space around us. “Do you know him? I saw you stop when you saw him,” she asks, a note of curiosity in her voice. “No,” I answer quietly. I scramble for a way to find common ground. “He’s very strange, isn’t he? The way he just laughs, but his eyes…” “Sad,” she finishes for me, nodding knowingly. “Yeah, I noticed that too. Maybe there’s a story there.” Before I can say anything more, Cassie stands and approaches the man with a confidence I wish I had. “Good afternoon! Mind if I join you?” she greets him brightly. I can’t hear their conversation, but I watch. Cassie’s presence changes the atmosphere around the man. His laughter continues but now it’s interspersed with quieter, more reflective moments as he talks to her. When we arrive at his station, he shakes her hand goodbye with a nod of his head as if to say thanks, and she returns to the seat next to me. “He lost his wife last year,” she shares softly. “He laughs because it reminds him of her. She loved to laugh. It’s how he keeps her memory alive, even though it hurts. It’s both sad and beautiful, isn’t it?” I nod, feeling a wave of guilt for judging him so harshly. “That makes sense, I guess,” I reply. I can’t help but rationalise with myself that people move through grief in their own way. My own station arrives and I say goodbye to Cassie, who smiles back at me as if we have been friends for a lifetime. I return the smile with an attempt of my own, both in awe and in envy of how someone could be so forthcoming. I make my way up to the platform, my connecting bus waits there as it always does, and I take my seat in the eighth row, closest to the back doors. The last of the passengers fill the bus, but just as the doors close and the driver begins to pull away, another girl my age with golden blonde hair runs towards us, waving her hand. The driver pauses and opens the door letting her in. She thanks him generously before turning to find a spot. Every row is full, save for the empty seats filled with backpacks like the one next to me. If she wants a spot, she will need to ask one of us to move our packs, but she hesitates. Nervousness wroughts her expression, redness colours her already flustered cheeks, and she resigns herself to standing instead. I can’t help but feel unsettled. Wanting to continue on as I normally would, as everyone else is, staring out the window completely ignoring her presence. But, I can’t. Not after Cassie. Not after the strange man. So I pull my backpack off the seat and call over to the young girl with all the strength I can muster and say, “Hey, do you want to sit next to me?”