"Excuse me, what's the next one towards Manresa?" I ask them. There are four men and a woman, all in work clothes, wearing the brown uniform of the Ferrocarrils de la Generalitat (Catalan Railways). They tell me there's one in ten minutes on platform 4, and, of course, we discuss the Renfe "incidents." I take a good look at them. While they tell me things—which I ask them to, driven by my excessive and fortunate curiosity—about this station, Plaça d'Espanya, my eyes flicker. I look at them again. They're like those sexy, shirtless, AI-generated photos your friends send you at Christmas. The five of them, the men and the woman, suddenly seem to be moving in slow motion. When they have to move around to show a couple of tourists how many zones there are to Montserrat, they remind me of runway models. In my head, as they move, I hear... Hot love, by T. Rex.
I rub my eyes. Why is this happening to me? Why do these five humans seem so attractive to me? I let them do their thing and sit down on the stairs, pretending to answer a call. What is it about them? It can't just be genetics, or the stimulating qualities of the coffee I drank, because I don't see everyone like this, only them. Then I understand. Of course. It's because they smile. That's it! They never stop smiling, while the people coming and going at the station, as busy as I am, don't smile unless one reel They find it funny when they see it on their phones. It's their smiling faces—a rarity these days—that make them so beautiful. I'm not used to this naturalness in adults, their expressions all the way up in the air. I'd let the train go by and watch them a while longer, but the ones on this line only come once an hour.
