I went downtown today. There was traffic. And I was collecting lives.


I used to enjoy going downtown. Walking, looking, getting lost among the people. But today it wasn't the same.

It was hot. Hotter than before. Or maybe it's me, I can't tolerate it as well as I used to. People overwhelmed me more than I remember. Bodies passing by, voices crossing paths, fragments of conversations I didn't ask to hear. And there I was, in the middle of it all, feeling like it didn't make sense. That we were all going somewhere with faces that, at that moment, were just faces to me. But no.

Faces that I perceive as faceless.

And yet, I couldn't help doing what I always do. What I've done since I was a child, long before I knew why I looked at the world that way. I started to observe them. To imagine. To write about them in my head.

That woman talking on the phone as she walks quickly, frowning. Is she arguing with her partner? Or is it work? Or maybe she just got some news and needs to tell someone right away, even if she's walking, even if it's in the middle of chaos?

That man waiting for the bus with a grocery bag, looking at the ground. What is he thinking? Is he going back to a house with people or an empty house? Is it hot there too?

The child holding his grandmother's hand, dragging his feet, asking "Are we there yet?" in that tired voice we've all had at some point.

I don't know who they are. I don't know their names. But for a moment, they were mine. I collected them. As always.

I used to do this without realizing it. Now I know. Now I look at it and wonder: is this being a writer or is it being me? Is it the way I process the world, or is it simply the way I found to not feel so alone among so many people?

I don't know. But today, amid the heat and traffic and voices, I realized something: I can't stop seeing everything as material for something. As if every life that crosses my path could be a story, a character, a page. And that exhausts me, yes. But it also sustains me.

Because if I can imagine their stories, then they're not just a mass that overwhelms me. They're people. And I, even if I feel overwhelmed, am still the one who watches. The one who writes. The one who collects lives even though no one knows I have them.

Sometimes it doesn't make sense. Sometimes the heat wins. Sometimes I want to be at home, in silence, with no one around. But today I went out. And although it was difficult, it was also mine.

Does this happen to you? Do you go out on the street and can't help imagining? Or are there days when the world is just noise and that's it?

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