Next, Next, Stop

The doors slide open, but no one gets off. The voice crackles— next… next… stop… and still we sit, half-formed passengers clutching phones like prayers and glancing at windows that only reflect ourselves back. The train doesn’t ask where we’re going— just tells us where we might leave. One girl hums a tune with no lyrics. An old man’s eyes are fixed on nowhere, as if waiting for a memory to arrive in reverse. Next… What if next never comes? What if it already passed— and we didn’t feel it because we were checking messages or measuring our loneliness against another stranger’s sigh? Stop. Do we ever? Some doors open too soon. Others never open at all. And sometimes you only know it was your stop once the train’s already gone.