Before it arrives, everything is pretty calm. There's the occasional walker and the soothing sound of the fountain, but not much else. Everything else is synchronised with its arrival. The majestic metal runner that brings people to their destination.
You wouldn't expect anything grandiose to happen, judging by how everything looks like. Some beggars at the entrance of the supermarket, one or two shoppers jumping from one deal to another, a couple of bored taxis standing by in the station and a homeless drinking his life from cheap beer cans. Far from majestic and yet, you're up for a treat!
You can feel something is about to happen. More people start coming one by one and going up the stairs. A bus carrying some lonely riders going home from this neck of the city arrives slowly in the station. They hurry up the stairs as well, you can feel their tension. The bus driver lights up his cigarette. It's his break, he finished the tour early so he can have a well deserved smoke.
In the meantime, a hissing sound becomes louder and louder and louder. Up until it ends with a bang of simultaneous voices.
The doors have opened.
And with them, the restless crowd emerges out of the station. Buses start their engines and pull into the station, cars pull in and horn to give their loved ones a ride home, taxis look alive with their drivers fighting for customers, the beggars are loud and shake their paper cans with change, even the homeless is happy while chatting with one of his more successful buddies coming from work.
It's a show, the whole square bursts into life, while the relieved metro waits for his lonely ride back into the bursting city center. This is how every weekday afternoon is. In the morning he brings people from the suburbs into the city and in the afternoon he reliably returns them home
After the metro starts his journey back to the city, the commotion still goes on for a little while.
Person by person, the square empties itself almost completely and people get on with their day, go back to their homes, back to their families and loved ones, back to their life. It's getting late now and even the homeless starts to move towards his evening crib. The fountain stops and the stores close, one by one. It's the end of a cycle that is doomed of repeating itself, day after day, station by station.