My friend recently told the world that she suffered a nightmare which left her feeling out of sorts. This was not the first time. 

Just now, as I sit in my car, I see a girl crying in the back seat of hers. We’re trapped on the bypass, her looking into some window, porthole to her grief and me looking at her. 

We don’t really know, do we? We never know what’s going on with the person sitting next to us. Bravely, we soldier on with, “Everything’s good’ to the response to “How are things?” 

Meanwhile we’re having nightmares and crying silently into our hands, as strangers look at us through a car window, wondering why. 

We’re encapsulated in our own tiny universes of heaven, hell and everything in between. We’re seen but we can’t be reached. And then the traffic moves on.