Can you cry under water?

Why do people ask me for direction? Do I look any less lost than anyone else? I haven’t got anything figured out. Most of the time I’m looking up at the buildings, a sure sign of a tourist. Maybe it’s the accidental contact. Eye contact, proximity, a thread of familiarity. The way acquaintances become friends. Having these mutual interests or friends create situations: you bump into, and recognize, someone often enough or for long enough and voila…old friend.
But I am still just as lost as you old friend. This is where I live. Where I walk to work everyday. Here, this is habit. I am looking for direction too. With my eyes to the skyline it is my silent search you interrupt: as you explain you are trying to find the train. Your solution is to leave, to escape. I want to shout that the train will always be there. Don’t ask others to direct your journey. You’re a block away; you’ll get there soon enough. I still want the answers the adventure promised. But it’s only a walk to work and it is just some stranger looking for the train. Some stranger who would likely ignore my stumble as we move towards the exit, watch me as I pitch forward grabbing at anything to prevent the platform from embracing my nose dive, mercifully walk around me as I pick myself up from the ground: a close call.
Were not old friends, were not even acquaintances. Why would you care? Would I reach out? Do I? Did I?