Everyone across from you on the train is the main character of a story you’ll never read. To them, you’re the extra.

Each person in that carriage is at the centre of something as detailed and urgent as whatever you are carrying. They have an exam, a fight they are replaying, a person they are hoping texts back. The useful part is the symmetry: you are the same small figure in their stories that they are in yours.

Try it deliberately in a crowded place this week. Pick one stranger and invent what their day has been, then remember somebody is doing the same to you and getting it wrong. It makes a room much easier to walk into.