Sitting in the bus, I rested my head against the cold window. It was an ordinary September day for most people. Drops of rain were slowly falling down, my cheeks pressed against the glass and my warm breath condenses the glass. I lifted my head and wrote my name on it, carefully in calligraphy. My head felt a bit heavy, I still felt exhausted. I must have woken up from a dream, since I could barely remember ever entering the bus. The displeased noises of the crowd must have woken me from my slumber. Slightly annoyed I twisted and turned in my chair, trying to fall back asleep and go back to my dream. Being woken up without your consent has to be the sadist in our sub-consciousness, pleasing itself by teasingly dragging people from their dream world, back to the harsh world of reality. Assholes. I rearranged my cushion, took off my black sweater because I felt too hot, but then put it back on because I felt too cold. The radio had started playing and at this point I was sure there was no way of me getting back to sleep. After a few more minutes, I gave up. With a deep sigh I looked out of the small window to distract myself from the people talking. I was curious as to what there was outside, maybe we were getting closer to our destination. Sadly, there was little to see except the usual sight of suburbs. We must have been getting closer, since I couldn't recognize my streets anymore. Outside I saw some green trees decorating the usually harsh ground that had turned muddy from the rain. The concrete streets were filled with cracks and mud. Everything was grey, the flats, the streets, the weather, even the people walking outside looked grey. I saw a few business men stopping in front of a stop sign, an old lady struggling with her groceries, a few middle aged women in tight clothes and running shoes. Children in uniforms were frowning as they made their way to school, I assumed. Some were shivering from the cold while dragging a broken umbrella. The rain must have been worse when I was asleep. Since this looked like the poorer area of the city, I assumed there were no other ways to get to school instead of walking or taking the bus if you could afford it. Seeing their red faces and drenched clothes I concluded that the latter wasn't an option. There was little to see inside the bus so I rested my head against the window and stared outside. Our bus came to a stop. I saw a brother next to our bus waiting to cross the road while carrying his little sister on his back, his little feet trying to make a way through the puddles of rain and mud. The road was bumpy and I was waiting for him to lose his balance and fall flat on the ground. The little boy was focused on the ground, making sure he wouldn't fall. The bus slowly started moving again and so did the little boy. Soon enough he tripped over a tree branch lying on the ground and fell with his pudding face onto the ground. His short spikey hair was turning red with what seemed to be some blood he probably got from falling so hard. Fortunately he served as a cushion for his little sister, who quickly stepped away and tried to help him get up; helplessly she looked around, when suddenly our eyes met. Affright hit me like lightening when I saw her mouse-like beady eyes.
I quickly turned around pretending to have seen nothing. I even drew the curtains, in case I saw her little rat eyes again. Lucky for me, the bus had driven away from the incident, so I felt at ease again. I dwelled off in my own thoughts and started thinking about how funny it is that some snails have houses and some don't. A bit like me, maybe if I'm lucky I'll find myself a house in the rain.
I rested my head against the chair. The soft sound of the radio was playing, I heard some vague Portuguese lyrics, but my mind was too blank to concentrate, if only I could fall asleep again. My head felt heavy; behind me two old ladies were complaining. I caught a few words, but my mind was too lazy to interpret the sentences. Something about the bus being stuck in the mud. I ignored the crowd around me and tried to focus on the radio that had changed to an upbeat Arabian song.
Since I had little to do and the radio was getting on my nerves, I tried to block my mind by focusing on something else that would drown me into my own little world. So I took out a notebook and a pen and doodled a bit on the words I had written the day before. I probably wouldn't be able to read what it says, but honestly I didn't mind. I hated rereading my own works anyway, so I mindlessly made a sketch of the little pudding boy falling on the muddy road. For some reason I never had difficulties ignoring the area and people around me. Some might see it as a curse, someone who can't keep both feet on the grounds of reality, but I rather experienced it as a blessing. Or so, I told myself, because it's how I've always experienced my life. Drifting away I was caught in a landscape of nostalgia. Do you know what I mean? Those moments where reality seems to be odd and only your fantasies seem to exist. Those usually happen when I look at the sky and realize how small everything is. The world, the people, myself. ''It's all stardust in the end,'' I'd say to myself. I felt I had one of those moments, but I didn’t need to look at the sky this time. It came naturally to me.I thought about Mother. The old ladies behind me made me think of Mother, they were loud and careless about other people in the bus. They obviously didn't care for the needs of others, as long as they could shamelessly raise their voices. I didn't care either fortunately, some people are just amusing to me. It didn't really occur to me what they were saying, it was all a beautiful chaos of stardust trying to comprehend itself and the Other. I was drifting away from here. Everything seemed surreal. People were turning into atoms that could speak, I became weird. I stared at my hands while I was drawing in my notebook. The more you stare at something, the more it loses its essence and purpose. It's like stripping an object down of its many layers and seeing nothing beneath stopped functioning the more I stared at them, until suddenly I dropped my pen and was unable to pick it up without putting all my focus on every movement of my fingers. Is this how God perceives the world? Pure logic, pure movements, purity in itself without the curse of developing a habit of everything we do.
Mother often told me that when I drifted away beyond the borders of reality, She would pull me by my hair, metaphorically speaking, back inside the cold prison bars of this world. Funny if you ask me, because when I drift away I feel more alive and aware than anyone surrounding me, but she doesn’t understand. That's no surprise I've realized after a while, no one did. Luckily for me though, she had deceased a long time ago. Or was it just a few months ago? I don't know, not that it matters anymore. It could've been yesterday and I still would have felt joyous to finally swim into this ocean of freedom. I had realized that swimming wasn't the correct word, after her death. It was rather drowning.
It seems as if I had finally started living and yet at the same time all the given structure had been lost. It felt odd living alone for the first few days. I still hadn't become used to living life by my own, so I adapted to the rules she had given to me. Waking up at eight o'clock, brushing my teeth, making my bed, having breakfast, getting work done, eating lunch, cleaning the house, an half hour break, having more work done, dinner, bath, setting the clock for the next morning and going to sleep. Repeat. This schedule had persistently jammed itself into the inner most subconscious level of my mind. So not knowing better, that was indeed what I did for the first few days. All according to my habits. And so the first few days flew by with no changes, it was as if Mother had never left. Her ghost was always present in me to guide me throughout the day. She used to be a severe parent, always making sure my clothes were tucked in neatly inside my oversized skirt, that my hair was in a tight ponytail without any baby hair framing my face. Neatly and organized, no wits to be found.
My daily schedule was organized as if it was made by the dictator of China. For such a tight schedule, I still had the time to bore myself beyond belief. You see, spending your days studying isn't exactly the dream of any little girl filled with energy of a young pup. Lucky for me though, She managed to quickly kick that out of me. Literally that is. And I had finally bowed before Her in this master-slave relationship, in which I had accepted fate. Thus this fate became a habit, in which I became so used to my daily activities that at one point there was no need for me to think about them. This habit didn't immediately die out after her death of course, so I continued living in this automatic mannerism.
One odd day however, I had noticed that my alarm didn't go off. I checked the clock and indeed, it was not eight o'clock. I had overslept that day an extra half hour, so in order to compensate I skipped brushing my teeth and hastily ate my breakfast and went on to my other activities. Slowly though throughout the day I had noticed the presence of somebody else. It was Me. Something inside me had burst into a flame of different colors. Colors I had never seen before. Suddenly I could see everything clear I looked around my tiny wooden bedroom realizing how empty it was. Mother was no longer here, it was only me and nobody else. I felt a bit scared, but excited at the same time. That evening I went to the kitchen and made a sandwich for dinner, something Mother would strongly disapprove of and happily ate all of it in the living room instead of the kitchen. This tingling feeling inside my stomach made me shake, I wasn't sure whether it was fear or excitement, but whatever it was, it made me feel alive. The next couple of days I slowly started neglecting more and more of her rules. I overslept, delayed work, ate sandwiches for lunch and drank alcohol at night. It felt good, no. It felt amazing. I actually don't bother to fill these pages with memories of Her, She has her own people to grieve over her loss. I have more important things to write, however I can't be more grateful for anything she has done than giving me the great gift of her young decease. Oh the joy! Oh the freedom! How I can finally be the arrogant self-centered twat I always was.
The people inside the bus were getting noisy and I looked up from my drawing. The ladies behind me were obviously in a bad mood, their raspy voices were scratching in my ears, making it hard for me to focus on my drawing.
''How long do you think we will have to stay here?'' the lady with the short white curly hair asked.
''This is not what I paid for when I wanted to have a nice bus trip,'' the lady with the long straight black hair said. They both sat with their arms crossed, muttering more complaints to who knows who. Obviously they had better ways to spend their times and so did I and I raised my head to see what was going on. The radio had finally stopped playing I realized and had been replaced by the cracking voice of the bus driver.
''Dear ladies and gentlemen, it appears that we have a flat tire that has to be replaced. Please remain seated and wait for further instructions,'' he repeated this phrase one more time before hanging up and the music came back on. Bless you, bus driver. Maybe if I ask it friendly I can go outside and have a break from the noise around. I discussed with myself whether I should remain seated and get some sleep or get off the bus to smoke a cigarette. The itch in my throat suggested the latter and I lifted myself from the seat towards the bus driver. He nodded when I asked him if I could go outside, but warned me to stay near.
''I understand, sir.'' and he opened the door for me. I saw that the heavy rain had stopped, a fresh breeze of wind was blowing through my hair. Pleasant, I thought to myself as I inhaled the smoke of my cigarette. There was nothing special to see, or so to say, nothing that I hadn't seen before. Mountains turning into smaller hills. Green landscape that had turned muddy. Here and there I could vaguely distinguish a few wooden houses, but other than that it seemed to be a rather abandoned rural area. There was nobody to spot either, so I enjoyed these few moments of loneliness before I had to go back inside. The silk scarf I was wearing however didn’t help much against the wind. That was fine by me, if I had to choose between death by heat or death by cold, I'd certainly prefer the cold. The feeling of being numb before turning into a great pile of nothingness was a great metaphor to end life on. With a last deep breath I exhaled the smoke and turned to get back inside the bus.
When I got on people were chatting. Not just with the person besides them, but some were leaning over their chair talking to the strangers behind and before them. Being stuck in the middle of nowhere brought out the social creature inside of us apparently. I looked over to my seat and frowned. Someone was sitting on my spot. It was a girl. She was young and she was wearing a short skirt showing her milky thighs. I felt uneasy approaching a stranger, especially asking them what they were doing on my spot. Not only that, but she was arrogant enough to take my spot next to the window. Awkwardly I stood next to her and waited for her to notice me. She was staring out of the window, the sun was shining vaguely, but enough to bring out her hellish blonde hair. Her face was flawless, which was unusual because of her premature full body.
''Hi.'' I tried, but she was staring outside the window not answering me. I felt irritated by her rudeness and loudly coughed. This finally seemed to grab her attention and she looked at me. Her eyes were wide and bright blue, soft and tender. She smiled at me, some of her teeth appeared to be missing.
''Yes?'' she asked in a high pitched voice. I was a bit startled by how nice she answered me. I scraped my throat before answering, almost immediately regretting my passive aggressive behavior.
''Do you mind if I sit here?'' I asked as neutrally as possible.
Her eyes widened and she looked surprised at me.
''Oh fuck, I'm sorry. Did I take your seat? Well, I'm sorry.'' and she lifted her hourglass body towards me so I could make my way towards the window.'' I was pleased by her kind intention, but refused. It seemed she needed the mindless out of the window staring more than I did.
''No, no. It's fine. I'll just sit over here.'' and I took the seat beside her. She seemed to hesitate at first and opened her mouth but then just nodded and turned her head back to the window staring away. I did the same and looked at the ceiling and sighed. People around me suffocate me.
It was quiet for a full half hour, I wondered whether she had fallen asleep or was still looking out of the window, but I didn't dare to look to the right, afraid she might catch me looking at her, so I just rested my head on my chair and stared at the ceiling. Finally though the engine indicated that we could get back on the road.. ''Ladies and gentlemen, the tire has been fixed. We will arrive at our destination in approximately two hours. Thank you for your patience.'' the bus driver's voice cracked. I heard the approved mumbles of the old ladies behind me. ''About time,'' one sighed.
The rest of the trip went by quietly but at one moment I could sense her looking at me, I pretended I was deep in thoughts. At this moment it was enough that she had taken my seat, I didn't want her to occupy my thoughts too. Her high pitched nasally voice however made me look over to the side as she said: ''I'm Noor and I ran away from home. Who are you?''
Through the window the sun was shining.
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