Dylan J. Lovas

Professor Thien

English 3301

04/11/2018

                  Letter Number Two.

        I started my walk after hopping off the B train at Newkirk Avenue. The weather was cold enough to force me to wear a heavy jacket but not horrid enough to make me shiver. Similarly, despite the fact that it wasn’t currently raining, the gray and cloudy sky made me concerned enough to walk with an umbrella in my hand. I saw a couple of people with open umbrellas standing on the exposed station platform, but the majority them kept their umbrellas holstered and shut.
       The station leads you out into the center of an outdoor shopping-center, and I always make an immediate right turn upon departing from the train terminal. As I walk, I pass by the same storefronts I must have passed over a hundred times now; a Subway restaurant, a Chase Bank, a small gyro place, a coffee shop, two small convenient stores, and a fruit stand. There’s always at least one woman browsing at that fruit stand, even though no one ever buys anything, and today was no exception. A child, who I assumed belonged to the fruit lady, aimlessly kicked around in a puddle.
        I walked past those puddles and those stores and those stands, making my way through the shopping-center and the people. It was around 8:30 in the morning when I left the station, and everyone who wasn’t a child looked grumpy about being up this early. Mostly everybody walked like I did, moving at a decent pace and desperately trying to avoid looking another person in the face. The most content person I walked past was a homeless man on a bench, though he was probably just on crack.
        I took a left to get out of the shopping-center, which finally lead me out onto the public sidewalk. First thing I saw was another fruit stand with another woman aimlessly feeling up cantaloupes. I kept walking forward, leaving behind fruit lady number two and a couple of people glued to their phones as they waited for a bus. Instead of the relatively small stores and the apartments on top of them that made up the shopping-center, I was now surrounded by full-size brick apartment buildings and modestly sized homes. A pizza place and a corner store added some variety to the local architecture, but that was about all I saw in the way of businesses. 
        I didn’t see or hear anything eventful as I crossed the street and continued ahead for the next two blocks. A handful of gray cars that matched the gray sky shot past me as I walked on the gray concrete sidewalk, and it was at that moment I realized that there was too much gray in New York. I waited at a corner for a bit until the light was mine, and then crossed onto a street that had a slightly more upbeat color scheme. The next few blocks were made up entirely of small-medium size houses, but they were painted in various shades of red, white, orange, brown, blue, and even a teal; it was a refreshing change.
        The front lawns of each of these houses were mostly the same; most of them had slightly beat-up grass lawns that faced outward towards the world. I passed by a few houses that had gates or fences put up, but the majority didn’t have anything of the sorts. The many trees that continued down and along my path were starting to look a little more alive as spring kicked in, but they weren’t back to full strength yet, ascetically speaking. 
        I eventually left this residential area and walked out onto another residential-store hybrid block. This block was populated mostly by college students, or at least people who looked like college students, that seemed to be as tired as me. I blended into this long line of people like a lost sheep rejoining its herd, and we all continued forward towards the college. The sidewalk was much narrower here, so I spent much of my time staring at the back of the head of the slow-walking person in front of me. I remember absent mindedly glancing at my watch a fair amount, but not once do I think my brain actually processed the time.

I was only able to break away from the pack upon entering the campus itself, as it had somewhat wider walkways. I drifted past the academic buildings that I had seen far more times than the ones at the shopping-center that I was sick of. I didn’t pay any of the buildings any mind until I came across the library; seeing the library meant it was time to start my shift and time to wake up a bit. It was time to work.