Found taped to a life insurance advertisement adjacent to the escalators of exit 1B, XXX Road Metro Station, 13 October, 20:32.

10月13日20:32，在XXX路地铁站1B出口的自动扶梯旁边的人寿保险广告上发现。

If you are the man, height 170-175 cm, full head of hair but some strands of gray, who takes the red line north and departs the subway via this exit every weekday evening at 7:30 p.m., give or take approximately 5 minutes, presuming you fulfill the above specifications, this letter is addressed & intended for you.

如果你是那个男人，身高170-175厘米，头发满满，但有几缕灰色，每个工作日晚上7:30走红线向北，通过这个出口离开地铁，大约5分钟，假设你符合上述规格，这封信是写给你的。

You may be wondering why I decided to compose this missive.

你可能想知道我为什么决定编写这本信。

Firstly, and this may surprise you given our lack of direct communicative history, but I owe you an apology; while I ought to know your name & other facets of your identity such as age, occupation, marital status, etc., alas! I do not. And should you wonder why an anonymous letter-writer such as myself feels any obligation to know anything about your life, this brings me to:

首先，鉴于我们缺乏直接沟通的历史，这可能会让你感到惊讶，但我欠你一个道歉；虽然我应该知道你的名字和你身份的其他方面，如年龄、职业、婚姻状况等，唉！ 我没有。 如果你想知道为什么像我这样的匿名写信人有义务了解你的生活，这让我想到：

Secondly, I first noticed you approx. 8 weeks ago. It was a mid-December, Thursday, and a constant drizzle had persisted for 4 days, perhaps 5, and such weather had taken an expected toll on my mood, which is to say I was glum, perhaps verging towards a clinically diagnosable species of depression and my colleagues, and also friends, told me over and over how I exuded a mood-killing funk out of every pore & orifice.

其次，我第一次注意到你大约在8周前。 那是12月中旬的星期四，持续的小雨持续了4天，也许是5天，这种天气对我的情绪造成了预期的影响，也就是说，我很沮丧，也许接近于临床诊断的抑郁症，我的同事和朋友，一遍又一遍地告诉我，我是如何从每个毛孔和孔中散发出一种杀死情绪的放克。

Something off in my expression, perhaps? Or in the cant of my shoulders? Anyhow one evening I was riding the subway home as normal and I saw a man in an amethyst coat and at first I simply admired the boldness of his sartorial choice (your sartorial choice), gawked at your willingness to ignore the unspoken regulations that trap the rest of us in grays and blacks and blues (gawking in admiration, to be clear). But then after my eye had been seized by the hue of your garment I noticed your face and really what I really noticed was that in the middle of an unremarkable subway car, pressed between office workers and young folk out for a night of fun and retirees whiling away their idleness, there you were, exuding a powerful, honest warmth. And as I continued examining your countenance I’m not sure how to put it exactly, but I felt less alone and less anonymous and also less hopeless about the world around me.

也许我的表情有些不对？ 还是在我肩膀的坎特？ 无论如何，一天晚上，我像往常一样坐地铁回家，我看到一个穿着紫水晶大衣的男人，起初我只是佩服他的裁缝选择（你的裁缝选择）的大胆，目瞪口呆地看你愿意无视那些将我们其他人困在灰色、黑色和蓝色的不言而喻的规定（明确地说，在钦佩中目瞪口呆）。 但后来我的眼睛被你衣服的色调所吸引后，我注意到了你的脸，我真正注意到的是，在一辆不起眼的地铁车厢中间，挤在上班族和年轻人之间，享受一个有趣的夜晚，退休人员正在摆脱他们的懒惰，你在那里，散发着强大、诚实的温暖。 当我继续审视你的面容时，我不确定到底该怎么说，但我感觉不那么孤独，不那么匿名，也不像我周围的世界不那么绝望。

I don’t think you noticed me watching you.

我想你没注意到我在看着你。

I tried to be not-noticed, shuffled behind a big fat man watching videos at full volume on his phone. But I did watch you, not necessarily because I was enraptured by the curve of your eyebrow and dignity of your nose and the rich mingling of browns suffusing your irises but because you seemed like a brave person, brave and principled and willing to think for yourself, in other words a good person, and I couldn’t quite figure the precise reason for why I thought so, and so I kept watching until you disembarked. Then the next day, I made my same commute and saw a man who reminded me of the purple coat despite his navy jacket, and upon closer reflection I realized, same person, it was you.

我试图不被注意，在一个大胖子身后，用手机全音量看视频。 但我确实看着你，不一定是因为我被你眉毛的曲线和你鼻子的尊严以及你虹膜中丰富的棕色混合所迷住，而是因为你看起来是一个勇敢的人，勇敢有原则，愿意为自己着想，换句话说，你是一个好人，我无法完全弄清楚我这么想的确切原因，所以我一直看着，直到你下船。 然后第二天，我做了同样的通勤，看到一个男人，尽管他穿着海军蓝的夹克，但他让我想起了紫色的外套，仔细思考后，我意识到，同一个人，就是你。

Which is to say, thirdly, we’ve been taking the subway together for the past few weeks, you standing by the door, me a few meters away, running a complex series of mental computations in the hopes of deriving what about you is so genuine and decent.

也就是说，第三，在过去的几周里，我们一直在一起坐地铁，你站在门边，我在几米外，进行一系列复杂的心理计算，希望得出你是如此真诚和体面的东西。

And, finally, I can’t tell you the number of times I’ve thought about committing to a course of action that will allow me to break free of the standardized routine of embarkation and silence and disembarkation, allow me to shift from not noticed to noticed. 

最后，我无法告诉你有多少次我想过要采取一种行动方案，让我摆脱上船、沉默和下船的标准化常规，让我从不被注意到转变为被注意到。

Like maybe tripping and falling or spilling a bottle of water or saying, “hi”, at exceptional volume. Because you’ve brightened my world, Mr. Sometimes Wears a Purple Coat, and there’s something in your features that makes me think maybe we could resonate with each other maybe. 

比如绊倒和摔倒，或者把一瓶水洒了，或者用特别大的音量说“嗨”。 因为你照亮了我的世界，有时先生穿着紫色外套，你的特征让我觉得也许我们可以互相产生共鸣。

But every time I think about tripping or spilling or shouting, I tell myself I should be bold and have the courage to take a chance, but then I wonder about what-ifs and freeze, paralyzed by potential admonitions and denigrations, silences and snubs, and by the time I’ve once again persuaded myself to go for it, focus on the possible positives, the train’s passed XXX Road and you’ve disembarked and I tell myself I’ll be bold tomorrow. Then tomorrow I find myself once again paralyzed by potential disasters and embarrassments, and again the next tomorrow.

但每次我想到绊倒、溢出或大喊大叫时，我都会告诉自己，我应该大胆，有勇气抓住机会，但后来我想知道如果和冻结，被潜在的告诋和诋、沉默和冷落所麻痹，当我再次说服自己去做，专注于可能的积极因素时，火车经过了XXX路，你已经下船了，我告诉自己，我明天会大胆一点。 然后明天，我发现自己再次被潜在的灾难和尴尬所麻痹，第二天又会再次瘫痪。

There were moments when I came so close to doing something, stepping out into the middle of the subway car and making eye contact and saying, “hi”, or, “hello”, something along those lines. But every time I’d look up and you were already stepping out of the carriage, already in the station, head down, practically racing to complete the final stage of your commute and return to non-subway life. 

有的时候，我快要做点什么了，走到地铁车厢中间，进行眼神交流，说“嗨”或“你好”，之类的话。 但每次我抬起头来，你都已经走出了车厢，已经在车站了，低着头，几乎要完成通勤的最后阶段，回到非地铁生活。

1 day, maybe 2 weeks ago, I wondered whether if I wrote down what I wanted to say, then maybe I would actually manage to say something. 

1天，也许是2周前，我想知道如果我写下我想说的话，那么也许我真的能说点什么。

So every day when I joined my coworkers in the elevator down from the office, I typed a sentence or two on my phone, things I could and should say, and some of it was unsayable, sentimental hokum and hogwash, but some felt… right. Not merely not-wrong, but genuinely right. And as I continued adding and tweaking and deleting sentences, I realised I need to one day pierce the fog of silence around us.

因此，每天当我和同事们一起从办公室下来的电梯时，我都会在手机上输入一两句话，我可以和应该说的话，其中有些是说不出来的，多愁善感的胡言，但有些感觉……是对的。 不仅没有错，而且确实正确。 当我继续添加、调整和删除句子时，我意识到有一天我需要穿透我们周围的沉默之雾。

Yesterday I printed this letter and today I told myself once again that I will muster the courage to let you know I’m more than another background figure occupying the same urban spaces you move through. 

昨天我打印了这封信，今天我再次告诉自己，我会鼓起勇气让你知道，我不仅仅是另一个占据你穿过的城市空间的背景人物。

But if trapped in the same loop of paralysis I’ve been trapped in the past dozens and dozens of weekday commutes, I will take this letter and put it somewhere you might see. 

但是，如果我被困在过去几十次工作日通勤中陷入的瘫痪循环中，我会把这封信放在你能看到的地方。

Realising that the pasting of these sentences and  paragraphs, as unruly and harmless as they seem to me (at least until the point when I’m about to speak) goes against the constraints of my own reticence and goes against the regulations governing this city and  the subway system. Realising that these sheets will possibly, probably, be taken down by a uniformed station worker almost immediately after posting and the worker will frown and sigh and wonder at the audacity of passengers who aren’t content to stay within the designated boundaries of acceptable commuting activities like purchasing tickets and standing in line and  reading in silence, not speaking up, not making oneself noticeable, blending in among the masses.

意识到这些句子和段落的粘贴，在我看来不守规矩和无害（至少在我即将发言之前）违背了我自己沉默的约束，也违背了管理这座城市和地铁系统的法规。 意识到这些床单可能会在邮寄后几乎立即被一名穿制服的车站工作人员拿下来，工人会皱着眉头，叹了口气，对乘客的大胆感到惊讶，他们不满足于留在可接受的通勤活动的指定范围内，如买票、排队、静静地阅读，不大声说话，不让自己引人注目，融入人群。

Anyway…

无论如何…

Finally (and I do mean finally this time, really, I promise), this is my plan: take these words and take them up and hope. Hope that as you emerge aboveground, you’ll notice these sentences and paragraphs, that you’ll stop and read the first line and realize that I’m addressing you. Hope you’ll continue reading through my disorganised ramblings and arrive at these final clauses and syllables. That you’ll understand what I’m trying to say.

最后（我确实是说这次终于，真的，我保证），这是我的计划：接受这些话，接受它们，并希望。 希望当你走出地面时，你会注意到这些句子和段落，你会停下来读第一行，并意识到我在对你讲话。 希望你能继续阅读我杂乱无章的胡言乱语，并得出这些最后的子句和音节。 你会明白我想说什么。