Riveted into the majestic marble flooring stood grand white, impenetrable pillars, guarding the

entrance to the train station. With high ceilings and high dome arches surrounding the
entrance, the station almost took me back in time, encapsulating me with its beaux-arts design
and stately engravings on the ceilings.

Chaotic noises permeated the inside: quick paced footsteps of travellers searching for their
train or their train schedule and the frantic, more desperate voice of the announcer alerting the
herds where to go like shepherds rounding up their sheep. Amongst the myriad of nebulous
individuals, a frail old lady, her hair a delicate grey colour, closely resembling a cloudless night
when the ethereal glow of the moon shines upon the pellucid waters. Glasses daintily perched
on her nose, she scanned the plethora of train facts and figures, slowly yet aptly decoding the
multitude of train facts and figures floating around.

To the right, a beguiling epoch red telephone box, suitably breaking the incessant gold
engulfing the walls around- stationed beside it, a beggar who ponged/reeked like a concoction
of alcohol and vomit. Grasping his cup with his speech slurred, the man pleaded for spare
change from the nonchalant crowd.

The hustle and bustle of the ordinary public hurled its way into the calm, collected part of the
station: down a palladian style, monumental venetian marble staircase, embellished with only
the most sublime works of art. The terminal was a station of its own, the loud steam engines of
the trains chiming rhythmically, pumping their way through the bolted ebony tracks fascinating
more and more people each time. Exactly in the middle, a massive, distinctive and opulent
pendant clock with gold demarcations and perfectly proportional hands suspended from a thin
pole in the middle of nowhere.

At the platform, a bounteous number of passengers were waiting for the train, some sitting on
the decorative, royal benches, some on the equally statuesque floor. Every now and then
bobbing their left and right heads uncannily- looking for the arriving trains. As the train arrived,
an eccentric spark in everyone’s eyes, anxious to locate the perfect seat. Impatient passengers
creating a deadlock between the passengers alighting and boarding. After better counsels
taking place, the in-going made their way for the out-going ending the vexatious deadlock.
Empty train compartments filled up within seconds as passengers swiftly rushed their way up
and down the platform trying to get all their luggage on the train. The last chime and there the
entire platform stood still, soundless, bereft of life for a short but seemingly lengthy interval.

And then, as the cycle continued, the next batch of hasty passengers battling their way through
the unruly crowd down the prodigious limestone staircase as the conductors shouted out,
“Grand Central to Penn Station”, I whispered to myself, “Welcome to New York, it’s been
waiting for you.”