I
always wondered what they were all thinking. We were all in the same place,
wanting the same thing but our reasons were different. I wondered what those
reasons were and tried to deduce my way through my boredom. A black pencil skirt,
a matching blazer and seemingly misplaced runners. She was an office woman who
worked in the city and had a long way to walk before she could change into the
more professional heels probably hidden in her deceivingly small bag. The
un-tucked blue button up over navy slacks and an expression that looked as if
the bulging, graffitied backpack was dragging him down to the worst parts of
hell. High school senior. Looked about ready to hang himself by his crooked
tie.
The
game soon lost its already bland flavour as my eyes roamed what could hardly be
called a crowd in most cases. I pretended to fiddle with my phone so that I
wouldn’t look like a deranged stranger who stared intently at randoms. Every
day I do this – text gibberish to no one while changing the song before it had
a chance to even whisper a lyric.
How
is it that everyone else looked like they knew what they were doing? They all
knew how to move, how to stand, how to wait. And here I was, awkwardly trying
to fit in with a group of strangers I may never see again beyond the next few,
long minutes. Nobody else had this much internal struggle over waiting at a bus
stop.
I
stared at another unnecessary bus pass by. The driver didn’t even seem to
glance in our direction. Not that I blamed him. There were only two buses that
went through this town. The people around here mostly just caught the one that we
were anticipating, not the hulking empty box that just turned an odd corner and
went down a mysterious route away from the city. It seemed that not many people
take the road less travelled. Sorry, Mr. Frost.
And
then something shifted as the high schooler started rifling through his pockets
and pushed off the wall. Squinting into the distance I spotted scrolling words
and the three glowing numbers. Relief came over the crowd and a movement began.
People seemed to creak and moan as they moved from their stationary positions
like statues that were given life and were moving for the first time. They
shook out the stiffness in their bones from sitting, standing and leaning for
what felt like forever. I eagerly joined a jumbled line and fiddled with my bus
pass.
The
bus lumbered and sank in front of us like an exhausted toxic beast, letting out
a weary sigh from its exhaust pipe. The doors abruptly open and in a somewhat orderly
fashion, we started to file in. The atmosphere was akin to the one of cows
entering the slaughtering house. It was an odd and surprisingly morbid thought
that passed through my mind. Then I worried that I was becoming bitter already
at the ripe age of 21. No. In this day and age, you can never be too young to
be bitter. Was that a reference to the Seinfeld rerun I watched last night
before I fell asleep in front of the computer again? The question ran out of my
mind as I began to step onto the bus and-
“No
more room on the bus. You’re going to have to wait for the next one”
The
cruel rasp made my heart feel like it was being sandpapered, more because of
the content of the sentence rather than the grainy texture of the voice that
declared it. A voice that seemed to be anointed to all bus drivers once they
graduated from bus driver school. It, of course, came along with a deep cut
scowl, intolerance for youths and the need to arrive too early or too late to
all bus stops.
Flushed
with frustration, irrational anger and embarrassment, I walk off the bus and
try to unimagine the mocking stares of the commuters going on their merry
little way to where ever the hell they needed to go.
The
next bus didn’t come for another 45 minutes. Shit. Shit, shit, shit. I really
couldn’t be late to this business tutorial. I checked my phone even though I
knew that there was no chance I would be able to make the class on time unless
I could grab a ride off someone. For a split second I considered calling home
and asking dad but quickly shook it off. I really didn’t feel like getting
another lecture on responsibilities and what I was doing with my life.
As
I was about to sink to the floor in defeated frustration and begin smacking my
head against the pavement, I hear hurried footfalls and loud panting coming
closer to me. I look behind me to see him frantically waving his left arm out,
waving like a mad man. Confused and not really thinking rationally from the
shock of not being able to function properly in society, I began raising my arm
to wave back before it froze in mid air as the sound of another bus stopped in
front of me. Well that would have been mortifying.
A blur of
disheveled black hair skidded to a halt in front of me. When the doors opened,
his brown eyes nearly rolled to the back of his head as he sighed with relief.
He was boarding the bus that no one took. Well, at least, he was trying to. He
desperately rummaged through his sticker-riddled bookbag while trying to
apologise to the bus driver for probably leaving his ticket at home.
Unimpressed and unsympathetic, the bus driver’s stubbly scowl and deadpan eyes
all pretty much told me he was about to kick the guy off like the other driver
kicked me off.
All of a sudden,
something inside of me just threw its hands up and said, “Not today. Not
again.” I quickly walk behind Mr. Messy Hair and slipped my bus pass in his
hand. Feeling the weird disturbance in his quest to stay on the bus, he looked
at his hand, shot up his eyebrows and turned and smiled at me. It was the kind
of smile that made me really see the kind of guy he was, even though the moment
lasted five seconds. Mr. Messy Hair had faint freckles dashed across the bridge
of his really, really straight nose. A nose that sat between two ordinary brown
eyes made extraordinary with the twinkle of relief and gratitude.
He swiftly dipped
the ticket into the machine and took it out, flashing a smug, cheeky grin at
the bus driver. He handed it back to me with a simple thank you, the smugness
no longer on his lips but rather genuine happiness. The cheekiness was still
there though.
I looked on with
the bus pass still in hand as he walked straight to the back of the bus and sat
down on the back seats.
I didn’t realize I
was staring like an idiot before a voice almost identical to the first coughed
out, “So are you just going to stand there or are you going to get on the bus?”
I was about to
apologize and get off before I looked at my bus pass. It was the ticket that
allowed three sections instead of my usual two. Odd. With an impulse that I
never thought I would ever feel I quickly dip it in the machine. I took it out
and immediately walked over to the middle of the bus and sat on the left.
This was
exhilarating. The unexpected courage and giving in to a weird impulse left me
with an adrenaline rush. It was if I just woke up really rejuvenated and was
ready to take on everything.
But then the bus
started turning that odd corner that would then go on
a mysterious route away from the city. Suddenly the courage fizzled out of me
and the adrenaline became much more like the unpleasant anticipation one faced
when looking down at the steepest fall of the rollercoaster. What the hell was
I doing?
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