snapshot

Picture this:

I am in a bus one Sunday afternoon.

The dashboard is decked in bright green Hello Kitty curtains and the windows are shaded by grimy red ones.

I keep wondering if I look scary or at least intimidating because the man sitting beside me sits half a feet away. He must be a painter of sorts judging by the look of his paint-splotched jeans. I can hear him singing. REM is playing on the bus’ radio and he looks the other way as he sings Everybody Hurts.

I keep reading Paul Neilan’s Apathy and Other Small Victories. Shane, the novel’s protagonist, thinks people are like punchlines. I look up from reading and think this bus is a joke.


It starts raining when we get to Turbina. I take a picture through the bus window as we pass the station. Rain on a sunny mid-afternoon - it's there one minute, the next minute it's gone. I am reminded of people as punchlines as the bus squeaks tiredly along.