In between songs I hear music from a nearby iPod, undulating saxaphones and trumpets bumping hips with tumbling bass lines. Afloat in a sea of thousand mile stares, a brief recognition in a second glance; a false summit to a subtle stretching tension. My music breaks, again the disconnected samba sax, incoming text on the one device with uncanny timing: ping! The next verse crashes. Email in my pants again but no wifi, it can wait. The train soldiers on, somehow perferable to the somehow different jerky charge of the bus. Dude drops his burrito in the corner of my eye and I smell it. He’s thinking 5 seconds but I don’t wait to see him go for it, thumbing the wheel of my board. The gritty bearings sing for concrete. The wheels catch snugly against the window as I prop my ride up on its tiny molded plastic ledge. I fumble my book out of my pack but don’t open it. Images fleeting flow by through the glass as they do around me inside the trains womb-like warmth. Sharply in my eye for just a second, then my vision slides to the next slipping scene. Down into a passing car; steaming coffee, texting fingers. Around to a shuffling in front of me, dude ruffles his paper. Out to the girl on the corner, bending to retrieve her headphones dangling. Inside now, a sound turns my head. Lips smack, a burrito consumed with a darting glance. Maybe I will read.