“We have to stop being afraid of being brave,” somebody has written, on the inside of a sticky silver candy wrapper, and I’m standing in the train station in the middle of the day staring dumbly down at this teetering pile of trash, like this is a sign and something important with a capital ‘I’ will happen and the universe is profound.

Maybe it is—

Maybe there is meaning inside every scrawl of graffiti, every sad man’s attempt at making a stranger see something that they do, contort the perspectives a bit until he does not feel so alone. Maybe we have grown far too cynical and need to retrace back to our roots, to love-conquers-all and reach-for-the-stars and believe-in-something-that-makes-you-happy, all the elementary school stuff that we’ve shoved out of our heads, replaced with exams and careers and health insurance and pension plans — whatever it is that adults have to think about, to grow up. (Maybe it’s 2:13 p.m. and the ratio of terrible news to good news in the papers today was astronomically high and I have already exhausted my share of attention to the day, worn down my alloted quota of being.)

Who’s afraid, anyway? Why would anybody be afraid, is what I want to know. I am furious; don’t you dare accuse me. A train barrels toward the platform now, two minutes ahead of schedule, and the velocity of it kicks up a wind strong enough to blow the wrapper away, littering the tracks at the opposite side and far far out of sight. Out of mind. Shake off the thought now, and go home, and curl up under the sheets waiting for the moon.

For ships can cross the world. And people die. And airplanes lift up, soar. And listen, me, I’m not scared, I’m just— I’m not scared.