It’s amazing how strongly piss smells.
In the subway, the stench of piss feels actually airborne somehow, like maybe it evaporated and lives in droplets. It's truly Hell: hot and subterranean and certainly your soul would be trapped in limbo forever if you perished down here. But one can, as Sartre wrote, live in Hell quite comfortably. One can get used to hell.
It's amazing how new yorkers, for all their cynicism and narcissism, really must believe in this city to continue to accept things like the daily violation of every orifice with airborne filth. It must be the very people who blow by you wearing noise canceling headphones that inspire you to keep going.
A man is sketching all the riders. He seems inspired, or maybe mentally unstable, or both. His hands are scribbling, eyes darting to and from a built latino guy with a military style buzz cut and athletic wear, who is applying mascara.