And then you board the elevator, full today, just before the doors close.  Your coffee joins the five or six other coffees in the enclosed space, and for the brief ascent to the 24th floor (your stop), that aroma becomes a cradle that lulls the group of you into cozy silence.  And nor will anyone break this silence.  

There’s a code, like on a crowded subway train, that most have no interest in violating.  It is the code of a crowd whose members are alone together, that paradox of urban modernity.  It is occasionally violated, of course.  Each stop brings new passengers, shifting the balance between initiated and uninitiated.  Mostly these newcomers accept the old conventions unquestioningly.  Mostly.

Rowdy teenagers, loud music, or slightly menacing owners of one variety or other of city brogue occasionally undermine this code.  Their music or conversation spreads like fog through the train cars, disrupting the tranquility that otherwise might have developed therein.  And then you get to the end of your ride, where you leave one embrace for another.