On the Bus
The bus was running fifteen minutes behind schedule, so I was about frozen to death by the time it pulled up to the stop. When the doors opened the warmth from the over-heated, over-packed bus greeted me as I boarded. I took off my mittens so that I could fumble through my wallet and find my pass. The driver nodded and I turned down the length of the bus to find an available space that I could cling to and forget the cold, forget the day, forget that this was my life now.
Everyday I catch the same bus and see the same tired faces coming home from another day. When I was a kid I thought that when you grow up you get a job, a car, a wife, a house, and you are happy. My parents seemed happy. My parents had lots of friends and they all seemed happy. I just assumed that that was the way things were; everybody was happy all of the time. The happy people don’t board this bus. Young mothers of young kids, bag ladies, tired old men in worn out pants and jackets from suits they never worn new, these are the people who ride my bus.
I ride my bus and I fit in. No one notices that I don’t belong. I am reflected in the window with the darkness outside and I don’t notice that I don’t belong. I melt in with the rest of the hollow people of the reflected glass. The lights from the street lamps and neon signs of fast food restaurants slowly flow by. Every few blocks we pick up another or lose a couple. Eventually there is enough room.
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