I walked on the train on Thursday, weary and undecided as to whether I would draw my captive audience. With my place by the door, I scanned around as we pulled into the next stop and people shuffled on. For a semi-crowded train the atmosphere was oddly calm. It was Thursday after all, just hours before Dallas, our attention still on the issues at hand from the previous two days. Just a few feet away from me a young couple found their place and positioned themselves for their journey. Both were dressed in business attire, both unaware of anyone else on the train at that moment. If you draw enough people you can see someones emotion and mood on their face—frustration, anger, joy, pain, sorrow, delight, lust—it’s all right there. I couldn’t help but feel something different that day. Something I could not put my finger on. As I looked at this couple, I realized I had seen the same emotion on my way to the train. As she gazed up and he down, their eyes were not sad but rather uncontent. There was love between them—you could see it in their eyes—that seemed to hold them up. Subtle smiles were exchanged. They made my decision for me, I reached into my bag for pen and sketchbook just as we entered the next station. I hoped they would not leave—confident they stay after their claim of space upon entering. What I wasn’t thinking about was the influx of new passengers, those that would build a wall between my line of sight and their faces. As I was about to accept defeat I looked above the person standing right in front of me and I noticed a small detail. Though I could no longer see there faces, I watched as her thumb nestled in his palm. They were not hiding their affection, they were simply not making a public display of it. As she moved her finger back and forth in his palm, ever so gently, I realized the depth of this moment, that odd feeling I couldn’t quite figure out—it was quiet. Everything about them was so. A subtle touch between lovers on a train, a quiet that screamed all we want is to be safe and alone in each others arms, right now. I couldn’t help but wonder what two people, who have each other, are feeling when the world around them is imploding? For the same reason we can feel a small sense of someone else’s pain, I felt a sense of the comfort in their quiet. It gave me hope for things that are right in this world.