—In New York, it's said that over eight million people pass by someone whose name they don't know every single day. They take the same train, wait for the same light, turn the same corner. Yet, they will never meet most of them again. So perhaps love isn't so much a miracle as it is simply meeting someone one more time—someone you were never supposed to encounter again.

11:40 PM.

Above ground, the windows of skyscrapers are still bright, taxi horns echo, and people leaving bars laugh as they melt into the night city.

Unfortunately, where I am standing right now is not there, but on a subway platform.

My eyes are drawn to the edge of the platform, where even the fluorescent lights barely reach. A young man in dark navy work clothes, a matching cap, and black work shoes is crouching down, moving a scraper with gloved hands. It seems he's wrestling with a piece of gum stuck to the floor.

Then, a rough male voice calls out from the stairs leading to the turnstiles.

"Elias! Do the stairs when you're done with that! Fifteen minutes!"

The young man scraping the gum is apparently named Elias. Even to his irritated colleague's demand, he replies politely.

He seems like a pleasant young man that anyone would take a liking to. Just as I think that, the subway slides in front of me, and I step inside in one fluid motion. Looking through the door window, he is still staring down at the floor.

Well, I probably won't see him again. I might have thought that, or maybe I didn't. Regardless, as I watch the fluorescent lights of the subway tunnel streak past like shooting stars, my head is soon filled with thoughts of tomorrow, and the encounter just now is pushed to the back of my mind.