a person

Walking around the world means walking past strangers. You don't even notice, most of the time, yet there they are - strangers.

In your mind, you know they are people like you and everybody else, but never did it occur to you that maybe the man you just passed is married to somebody. Did you ever think the girl next to you on the bus might be hopelessly in love with the one that sits right opposite to her, while she doesn't even give her a second glance? Have you ever really realized that these people have names, birthdays, families?

To you, they are just faces walking by, sitting next to you, bodies that accidentally brush your shoulder in the mass of people around you, something you forget in less than a second. They are there, then they are not, they appear and vanish before you could even consider taking a second glance at them. It happens every day, over and over.

But what if one day, one face turned into a person? If a person took the seat next to you on the train and said hello, what happens? If that person asked what book you are reading and where you are going, if this particular person told you a name?

Now that there is a name, a voice, a meeting and an exchange of words, maybe the person and you stay in touch, exchange numbers, meet to chat and get to know each other.

Then there's a birthday, a name, a family, maybe a hobby, a job, and suddenly, you forget that this person was a stranger just the tiniest bit of time ago. Somebody you would have walked past or sitten next to without  so much as acknowledging their presence, if the stranger hadn't decided to stop being one - a stranger, a face - and begin to be a person. A birthday, a name, a family. Maybe a hobby, a job.