I've spent so much of my life on a bus going somewhere or coming back from somewhere and each time, there's been a story. I've lived a story and ten out of fifty of my chapters might have taken place on a bus. The thing is, most of the time I wasn't the protagonist. I couldn't tell you how many stories a bus has known.
For example, say, that time L and I were riding back from some shopping excursion and decided at random to take the bus going in the opposite direction, to try out a new route. There was a deaf woman with a dog up front. I only noticed the woman because of the dog, but then there were ambulances and police cars flying by, and then lights flashing at the bus terminal and then we got off and everything was roped off with caution tape and the deaf woman started shouting "SOMEONE GOT SHOT SOMEONE GOT SHOT" but we weren't sure. Some confusion and delay later, we got home again on another bus full of passengers as equally confused as us. The next day I looked it up on the news and there had been some kid stabbed at the bus terminal. I imagine his story. Sometimes it's funny. He rolled into the terminal, was stabbed, politely got on the bus again to get home before his parents got worried. Sometimes it's threatening. Who would have thought this boring old town would have stabbings in a busy public area? I imagine his emotions, largely running into the fear and terror end of the spectrum. Maybe some anger and embarrassment and worry thrown in. Then, like everyone else, I forget them. Empathy is short-lived.
The rides I remember the most rapidly are the ones where something personal to me was happening. Writing and having my deepest thoughts on the bus. Identifying truths about myself, having eye-opening realizations, writing with a kind of flow I have difficulty achieving when I'm not in transit. I guess it's because being in transit is like the last patch of limbo sometimes. I'm locked away from the internet and from all of the distractions I'd be itching to dive into otherwise. I'm not even properly in one place. The world outside is flashing often too fast to pay much attention to, or it's a chance moment that's gone as soon as I've seen it and usually forgotten despite my attempts to remember. It's basically a little capsule of life, boiled down to its essentials: just me and my thoughts moving along.
The bus is the one place, the only times during my usual workday that I am an extra in someone else's play: not a supporting cast, but faceless, nameless, totally anonymous, unseen. Everything on a bus seems so fleeting, so temporary - every interaction is just a hollow gesture. I could curse out a passenger or say a friendly greeting or completely ignore them and it wouldn't matter what I did because I'd never see them again. And yet the time that I spend on a bus isn't temporary or fleeting at all. It's a significant part of my life that I overlook, just like everyone else.
Maybe someday I'll be able to remember to notice everything, not just parts. Until then, one more piece will do.
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