The mid-afternoon lull settled over the platform, thick and humid. A scuffed wooden slat bench, marked by a faded yellow warning stripe and a permanent coffee ring stain, held a discarded dry-erase marker. It sat near the edge, its plastic cap slightly askew. No one was looking at it, only at the empty tracks. Then, a voice drifted from the far end of the platform, articulating the word 'budget.' Immediately, the marker tip pressed against the wood, leaving a faint, chalky residue that spelled out a single, damning number. A woman nearby leaned down, wiping the surface with her sleeve, slowly erasing the number only for the marker to immediately write the word 'budget' again. The cycle repeated, the marker refusing to write anything else, leaving the bench surface coated in the ghost of fiscal planning.
static · uneasy