By San Srikant
It’s the summer of 2023. I’m about to embark on my first solo plane ride. Seeing my cousin who lives in New York City. New York City. The city that never sleeps, the city that’s in a constant state of being. The city with the higher meaning. New York City. Where the buildings are as tall as your dreams are wide. 8.3 million people, and not one the same.
It isn’t my first trip. No, I’ve been in love with The Big Apple since before I could even fathom there was life out there unlike my own in rural Missouri. I touch down in LaGuardia, and almost immediately, there’s a familiarity in the way the air wafts — vibrant and electric. I look around, and I see the faces of those who were on my plane. Some are plastered with pure joy, while others embrace the city’s hustle and bustle with their fast movements. It makes me wonder if any of them have ever been here before. If some are visiting family or are here to start the rest of their lives.
I meet with my cousin, and after a night of settling into his three-bedroom apartment with two roommates whom he doesn’t talk to, we begin the journey into the sunny avenues and crowded pavements. Entering a vast garden, there are benches surrounding it with occupants on each one: an elderly couple, a mother and her two children speaking in Spanish, a young couple admiring the blooming flowers. Each one with a different background, a different story.
Perhaps the elderly couple met in high school, exchanged love notes in class, and the man was given a locket before being sent off in the draft. Perhaps the mother recently immigrated from South America, towing along her children in hopes of a new life. One where her past won’t follow. Perhaps the young couple have known each other since childhood and are just now exploring what life is like outside of the word “friend.”
But what do I know? These are people I’ll only think about today, secretly wish them the best and only hope things work out for the sanity of my own consciousness, just for me to never see them again.
Throughout the day, my cousin and I take Ubers from place to place, only exchanging mundane hi-how-are-yous in calm manners. Neither of us bother to strike up meaningful conversation. What’s the point? I’ll never see them again. I’ll never know the driver from the morning just got off of a night shift and is working again to provide for his growing family. I’ll never know the woman driving us from an art museum to the hottest lunch spot is a struggling actress who dreams to see her name illuminated with twinkling lights, opening for the next Broadway play. These are lives I’ll only visit once; realities I’ll never know.
It’s night, and we are walking back to my cousin’s apartment. On our way, we pass many other apartments with each window a different hue. The one on the top right is bright purple with two teenage friends gossiping about the latest drama at school. The bottom left corner is a warm yellow with two parents watching “The Notebook” after putting their kids to bed. A window celebrating a 21st birthday. A window receiving the news they just beat cancer. A window teaching its new puppy how to sit. All inferences I’d like to believe are true.
As I lie in bed, I concoct a variety of these stories, collecting each one like gems and watching their faces melt away. Because the stories are what matter. Not just the person at face value or their material assets, but their intangible complexities that last. Not seen or heard, but felt. Everyone in this concrete jungle has a story embedded within, reminding passersby like myself to give meaning to the worlds outside of our own. To scan a collection of humans from every facet of life who congregate in this city. Because that is where the magic is.
Editor’s Note: This story was first published in Taxi Society Magazine in May 2025.
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