or the transit of the masses. New Yorkers, getting from one place to another, submissive, patient, resigned, quiet. 

I observe them as they sit or stand, lost in thought, reading, listening to their I pods, studying their notes, eating, staring into space, oblivious to their fellow passengers, strangers who share a brief time of enforced intimacy. 

The subway, where all of us in our individuality become part of an anonymous whole.