Sleepy observations

This is a story about something that happened last summer, at a time when I was running on a lot less sleep than usual:
It was the evening of a day I had spent running lots of errands, trying hard to not get lost on the way and to avoid bare-faced strangers who were looking for conversation. I was standing at an unfamiliar train station, blankly watching the strip of evening sky between an ugly building and the station roof change colors. I barely paid attention to the podcast I was listening to, partly because I didn’t have my coat and it was getting chilly, partly because I was thinking about whether I’d make my next appointment – with Berlin public transport being so unreliable, especially during the evening rush hour. While I was standing there, lost in thought, a train approached the platform. After a glance at the information board to confirm that it wasn’t the one I had to take, my gaze found the train windows that were passing by me at a decreasing speed until I could make out individual passengers. When I realized that they were all wearing masks, I was genuinely shocked. The thought that this train full of incognito criminals would soon open its doors and thus remove the barrier between us worried me. Only then did I remember that we were in a pandemic and that wearing a mask on public transport is mandated, which meant that all those apparent criminals were everyday heroes. As I continued to gaze at the windows that were now slowly gaining speed as they passed by me, I was shocked at how exhausted I must have been at that moment and decided to get some much-needed rest after that last appointment. I should definitely stop making fun of the duck’s numerous Christmas market and cookie daydreams after this embarrassing incident that, hopefully, didn’t show in the tiny bare section of my tired face because, yes, I had forgotten that I was wearing a mask myself. I would have been one of the criminals.