As soon as I stepped onto the subway, I saw him—a young boy, perhaps seven or eight years old, sitting with his hands tightly folded in his lap. He appeared extremely exhausted, with his eyes averted and his headphones in, but he wasn’t actually listening to anything. Despite being surrounded by adults, he somehow came across as the most mature of us all.
I initially assumed he was simply having a difficult morning. However, I became aware that he wasn’t really a part of the typical rush as the train rumbled along—no parent was close by, and nobody was fussing over him. He was alone, with a bundled-up toddler sleeping beneath a pink blanket beside him.
