As Pierre slammed the door behind him, he saw the streetcar pulling into his street. He ran. At that moment, Pierre was just the one running to the streetcar; his entire existence consisted of catching this streetcar and not being late again. However, the streetcar driver left the door open for Pierre for a moment so that he could walk through and drop onto a seat, exhausted. Only now did he realize that his back was aching because he had once again been running with his heavy bag. The rest of the journey passed while Pierre gazed out of the window, lost in thought. When a brassy voice blared the stop of Pierre's university, he got off.
Pierre liked his campus, the green spaces, the trees that no longer carried leaves and the empty fountains. The old brick buildings and small squares where he liked to sit on the bench until he was too cold. He liked the architecture and the facilities, the food and the connections. He also liked his major. The only thing that bothered him were his fellow human beings. It wasn't that he didn't know anyone, but the people who surrounded him were disconnected from him. Pierre couldn't connect with them and felt alienated among in their presence. Pierre was good at carrying on small talk with them and greeted a ton of people on his way through the corridors, asking about their well-being. But as soon as the conversation threatened to drift down to a deeper level, he felt a considerable dissonance towards them. This resulted in Pierre not being invited to gatherings and always being left out. Pierre was trapped in an in-between world of a social butterfly and an outsider. He had more acquaintances than any other student, was greeted more often, but had remained such a stranger that he was not accepted into any inner circle. He felt out of place. And even if you couldn't tell from the outside, because he always smiled and let anyone who desired to do so shake his hand, Pierre felt lonely, isolated and trapped.