Riding the Shuttle Bus

"Mine eyes are made the fool o'er th' other senses,
or else worth all the rest..."

-Macbeth

Climbing the three mud-splattered steps, I passed through a cloud of cheap aftershave which the driver must have soaked himself with. It's the same stuff my well-intentioned aunt gave me when I was ten years old--$3 from Avon. Does anyone think this stuff smells good? Really? I walked about six rows back, but I could still taste the cheap cologne in the air as people filed by me, wafting the cloud toward me.

Two middle-aged women sat by the driver. They were facing forward, away from me, but talking at the top of their voices. I eavesdropped, later laughing at how badly I mistook their conversation at first. One of them asked "Do you think she will stay?". The other "I dunno--that's sure a lot of money?" I surmised that one of their female co-workers had hit the lottery and they were wondering if she would continue on at work--I've heard so many people debate that issue it just seemed natural.

The bus filled up, and a wrinkled man in loose clothes made eye contact with me--I scooped up my black, leather briefcase and set it in my lap so he could sit next to me as we bumped along the road. As I slid against the window, the seat spring stuck right between my shoulder blades--not painful, but enough to be uncomfortable. I smiled as he sat down, and he smelled as though he had just smoked his 100th cigarette of the day.

He got off at the next stop with about half of the passengers.

A beautiful and well-dressed young woman then got on, and took the now-unoccupied seat in front of me, sitting sideways with her back against the window, leaning her head gracefully against the seat right in front of me. She was a wispy blond girl, about 23, with a dreamy look on her face--she stared across the aisle of the bus but didn't seem to be looking too intently at anything in particular.

Just then, I realized that the women on the front row were describing one of their daughters who had just lost her job. They were debating if she would continue to live with her mother since she couldn't afford a place of her own.

The blond girl in front of me utterly reeked of alcohol--I could smell it coming out of her pores as she leaned against the headrest right in front of me. It made her less intimidating, more vulnerable, more beautiful, but sad to me.

We came to my stop and I got off the bus, wondering how many daggers of the mind were to be endured in the 10-minute ride.