Eight Minutes

I step on.

The bright yellow lines contrast the black grids, and guide me as if I were an airplane landing wearily on an airstrip. Instantly I begin judging my best option for a seat. This decision must be made quickly, and as nonchalant as possible. No one likes knowing they were an option not quite good enough. I begin walking to the back of the bus, and I see the perfect spot. Three seats all alone on the very last row, ready for the taking. Before I get the chance to sit, the bus lurches forward and I am thrown a few feet. I steady myself and giggle nervously, knowing I had narrowly avoided landing on my face. I pick the corner spot, so that someone on one of the next stops can take the third seat over without having to sit right next to me. I plan these things, like one chooses which sweater to wear with which pants - always. It is not necessarily my own comfort I am concerned with, but the atmosphere that is formed uniquely and distinctly with each trip on this bus by those filling it and their positions around me. Once I've placed my bag on the floor and levelled my breathing, I allow myself to fade into the window. Three times a week I take this bus, on this route, to a place of higher learning - or so I'm told. Three times a week I watch as images flash by me through a window pane as if I am watching a still life photo flip into scenes like an old cartoon. I feel like I am a child again, watching my morning cartoons before being dropped off at school. First I see a retirement home. It is overly familiar to me because my bedroom window looks out onto its yard. A yard with a gate, with picnic tables chained to fences, with men who have lost their minds mumbling about some kind of indignation - tired of being silenced. I wonder when it became necessary to chain a picnic table to a gated fence. Today, an old man wearing a grey cap sits silently on the wet picnic table and watches the bus drive by. I pass this pink building three times a week and today I realize that I would rather keep my eyes inside the bus.

After the first two stops the bus is usually filling up with people. Today, someone takes the seat I left for them. A redhead, whose face I only just glanced at before she spun around to sit. She is quaint, with bright green eyes and an outfit that is wildly fascinating. She is wearing a big woollen purple sweater, like the kind my Mother would knit in the 90's to fight the chill of a night-time skate. Out of my peripheral vision I see her reach into her bag and pull out a novel. She has bent it in a way that I cannot read the title, and I conclude she must be a reader, a lover, a philosopher. I am tempted to lean over and ask what book or what story her mind filters through, but I can't read her body language and am too nervous to disrupt her. I am envious of her ability to read while in motion; it is something I have never been able to master without getting sick.

While pondering what the book could be called, and imagining exactly what this redhead's life entails, I unconsciously face the window once more. Almost on cue I see the looming walls of the funeral home that the bus speeds by each day. On some days there are many cars in the parking lot, and people with slumped shoulders and black clothes standing outside for a smoke. Even in mourning there is always time for a smoke. On this day it is empty and I realize that it's too early in the morning for a funeral. Three days a week I pass by this and I often wonder if the walls of the funeral home are the very same walls that structure people's nightmares. The two second glimpse of this place of hunched over shoulders sends my mind spinning into dark places. Again, I decide I would rather keep my eyes inside the bus.

I begin searching faces, but what for, I could not tell you. There is no one familiar to me on this bus- I know that for sure. But yet I search, carefully and strategically. I always begin with the shoes. You can tell a lot more than just the weather by a person's shoes. I do this analysis with relaxed eyebrows, as to not raise suspicion in other passengers. Today, a young man's remarkably clean shoes have caught my attention. There is something about this fact that bothers me, they are too clean for a muddy day - and so I choose him. I look at his hands and realize that they look like piano hands - long, lean and rounded fingertips. Once I make it to his face and see his eyes, it is clear that he is playing my game too. He focuses on a passenger for a few moments, stealing glances when least noticeable, then moves on. I am fascinated at finding another, and watch him carefully. I realize too late that I have been staring at him, and our eyes connect. I have been caught. But at the same moment, he has also. We both avert our eyes to the window, with the shame of exposure.

I try to change my thoughts to reduce the guilt that weighs down my arms, and I glance for the third time out my window. I realize that we are quickly approaching the still light photo that I once longed to see each day on this route. We roll past an empty field that lay in between two plazas filled with tanning salons and convenience stores. It is filled with dead orange plants that were left there to freeze in the winter. However, an image of a flawless sunflower swaying lightly in the last days of summer stains my thoughts. Before fall's first frost came and killed, there was a single and tall sunflower in the midst of the failing plants - it was beautiful. I swore to myself each trip that the next time I would bring my camera, to save the image that filtered through my dreams. Then on the third week of a wet September, I perked up looking for the familiar face and it was gone. Ever since the disappearance I have watched the field pass by me, knowing that it has died but hoping that I just failed to see it the last time. Today is no different, I am disappointed. I am tempted to go find its remains. Perhaps once there is a thick sheet of snow on top of the orange corpses I will be able to forget.

I re-enter the life on the bus. Someone has pulled the yellow line that tells the bus driver to pull over at the next stop and I hear the familiar beep. The young man who caught me staring gets up to leave, but not before getting a final glimpse at the strange girl at the back of the bus who knows his secret. I wonder if he will remember me, because only seconds later I have already forgotten his face. The bus lurches forward and is heading towards its final destination. Everyone shuffles, pulling their bags over their shoulders and preparing their bodies for the wet and cold elements outside of the warmth of this metal tube.

I stand up, and wait in the line as the slow progression of exiting passengers begins. It almost feels as though these people, including the redhead who made me nostalgic for the cold face I felt on a homemade rink, are apprehensive about leaving. Shuffling forward through the traffic of people there is a solemn silence, slow steps and lowered eyes - it reminds me of the funeral home. The exiting passengers can all see the bustling, loud group of people ready to step up once we have emptied out and gone on our way. I swear that I hear a long muffled sigh. As I get closer to the exit, I start to wonder if I was not the only one thinking about chaining picnic tables to a gated fence.

I step off.

written by Kailey Morin