HOME | DD

Description
The sun bites at the snow reprovingly as I run for the bus, my bag swinging wildly by my side, fare already in hand. Panting to a stop behind the procession of borders, I climb the giant metal steps and drop the change in the glass box, and thank the bus driver as he hands me my transfer pass. It's too early to be awake, this January morning, yet here I am, stumbling down the aisle dirty with the remnants of polluted snow and boot marks.

I take a seat near the front. Luckily, being an early Sunday passenger, I don't need to commence the awkward head-nod-half-smile in anyone's direction: the bus is only half-full, and I have the whole seat to myself. I sigh and lean back, willing my heart to beat a little slower.

Under the hypnosis of streetlights and the hum of the overlarge engine, I lapse into calm. The irritation of being awake has been replaced by the acute awareness of my breathing pattern. My mind wanders.

You are naturally the first stop. What my thoughts always seem to revert back to these days. It's taxing, to say the least, but in a sick way I'm glad that you're still with me in some sense. I mentally slap myself on the wrist and try to imagine the coming week, breakfast, anything else.

The brakes scream their stop and a few people come in, and a few people go. I blink at the road and try to remember them completely rid of the brown muck, like it was last spring, that night when I wished for something extraordinary to happen, and got exactly that.

"Is...this seat taken?"

Description
The sun bites at the snow reprovingly as I run for the bus, my bag swinging wildly by my side, fare already in hand. Panting to a stop behind the procession of borders, I climb the giant metal steps and drop the change in the glass box, and thank the bus driver as he hands me my transfer pass. It's too early to be awake, this January morning, yet here I am, stumbling down the aisle dirty with the remnants of polluted snow and boot marks.

I take a seat near the front. Luckily, being an early Sunday passenger, I don't need to commence the awkward head-nod-half-smile in anyone's direction: the bus is only half-full, and I have the whole seat to myself. I sigh and lean back, willing my heart to beat a little slower.

Under the hypnosis of streetlights and the hum of the overlarge engine, I lapse into calm. The irritation of being awake has been replaced by the acute awareness of my breathing pattern. My mind wanders.

You are naturally the first stop. What my thoughts always seem to revert back to these days. It's taxing, to say the least, but in a sick way I'm glad that you're still with me in some sense. I mentally slap myself on the wrist and try to imagine the coming week, breakfast, anything else.

The brakes scream their stop and a few people come in, and a few people go. I blink at the road and try to remember them completely rid of the brown muck, like it was last spring, that night when I wished for something extraordinary to happen, and got exactly that.

"Is...this seat taken?"