I literally just titled this: "The trouble with being left alone with your mind while waiting in public for extended amounts of time"
She always wondered what they were all
thinking. They were all in the same place, wanting the same thing but their reasons were different. She wondered what those reasons were and tried to deduce her
way through her boredom. A sensible, black, pencil skirt with a blazer and
runners. An office woman who worked in the city and had a long way to walk before she could change into the more professional heels in her deceivingly small bag. Black dress pants with a garishly orange polyester shirt. She guessed that the mandatory animal shaped hat and name tag were shoved unceremoniously to the bottom of that worn canvas bag that did not conceal the overtly cheery fast food logo. And the un-tucked blue button up over navy slacks and an
expression that looked as if the overflowing and graffitied backpack was dragging him down 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 her eyes roamed what could hardly be called a crowd in most cases.
She pretended to fiddle with her phone as to not look like a deranged stranger
or a creep. Every day she does this. Sending messages of gibberish to no one
and pretending to be dissatisfied with the current tune carrying through the
earbuds. 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. To her, they gave
off a sense of direction. Purpose. And here she was, awkwardly trying to look
busy – awkwardly trying to fit in with a group of strangers she may never see
again beyond the next few hours.
Nobody else had this much internal struggle
over waiting at a bus stop. She stared at another bus pass by. The driver
didn’t even seem to glance in their direction. Not that she blamed him. There
were only two buses that went through this suburb. The people around here
mostly only caught the one that she and the others were anticipating, not the
hulking empty box turned an odd corner that lead down a road to an unknown
destination. It seemed that not many people take the road less travelled. Sorry
Mr. Frost.
