#thebusdriver

            The sky was gray, not a boring or dull gray like the fur of an old cat, but a steely, fresh gray like the shine of a new knife. Such thoughts seemed too detailed to Rosa for where she was and what she was doing, the same thing that she did each morning, afternoon and evening: driving the city bus. The bus lurched forward with each mile and moaned something that resembled a yawn at each stop, as she opened the door to let in another flock of lives that she could only ponder and guess at.

          She liked to look in her mirror at those lives, so quiet, except for the teenagers. They’d stand out like neon colors in an old foreign film; animated and loud with an obvious disregard for the silent, thoughtful people surrounding them. It was those people that interested her the most, she wondered what really separated them from the vibrant youth; too much time lived? Too many things seen? Or perhaps they were like her, sitting, wondering in repose of the life they dreamed of when they too were loud and colorful and blissfully ignorant. Only to find that ten or twenty years later that the color has faded and they are instead living lives that are dreary and difficult and altogether boring in order to continue living at all.

            The bus trembled to a stop as she passed out transfer slips and watched money being dropped into the dark abyss that swallowed handfuls of change. She sighed and propelled the bus forward onto its city course and glanced back up into the mirror to stare at the fresh batch of lives she’d let on. They were mostly made up of the elderly as usual, the white haired ladies sitting with their purses held tight and their legs crossed. They would smile politely when they’d look up, and smile wider if a small child decided to look their way for a brief moment. Their tiny eyes staring at the wrinkled leather of the women’s faces, in awe as if they suddenly understood that this would be their future as well.

            The old men weren’t quite as kind looking, gruff and slightly unshaven; they looked at the children with distaste and annoyance. Rosa could almost hear their thoughts of how fortunate the youngsters were without knowing it and how the young take their youth for granted. She believed the reason was that the men remembered a time when they had cars and jobs and women and now that those things had faded into the past, they looked upon those that one day would have all that they lost as all too lucky and undeserving.

            Rosa stopped the bus again. The feeling of how very mundane the day had become did nothing for her mood, and she scowled at the mismatched lives that stepped on the bus in exchange for many of the elderly. She later regretted it, they’d done nothing wrong to her and they looked just as jaded as she felt. The day was hitting her brain like rain; slow and steady and predictable. It made Rosa wish for hail, wish for lightening, something sporadic and slightly dangerous to break through the monotony. Then, oddly enough, it began to actually rain, the drops hitting the windows of the bus as slow and wearisome as the figurative ones in her head. They stayed that way too, no hail, no lightening, just slow falling water. She imagined she was one of the drops falling to the Earth, as the bus again shuddered to a stop, the lives on it trickling out like water into the gutter.

          She moved her focus away from herself and back to the large round mirror above her, staring hard into the eyes of the new lives behind her, searching to see if somehow a spark might lay in one of the many pairs. She began looking almost feverishly for someone without the same dull and soul-less stare that she’d grown so used to seeing. Then, there it was, a woman with a bright floral dress and a large shopping bag. Her hair was curled with a large yellow flower holding back her bangs, almost enveloping her entire head.  She looked like she was in her mid-thirties and normally she probably would have blended in with all the other lives on a bright street. As an ant in a colony, a speck among specks, she wouldn’t have shown any more vibrant than any other. But here in the gloomy gray and blue of the bus among the gloomy gray and blue lives surrounding her, she sparkled. Her smile was large and genuine; her eyes large and bright, with a slight peculiarity Rosa couldn’t put her finger on. This woman sat up front ready to be spoken to, ready for absolutely anything, her life it seemed was a diamond among the coal she’d chosen to ride with and it made Rosa wonder why she was riding the bus at all.

            “It’s lovely today, isn’t it?” The woman spoke suddenly, making Rosa leap from her thoughts and cause the bus to swerve lightly to the left. She re-situated herself and got the bus back on track before cautiously responding, “Yes, I’m surprised someone else thinks so though, I thought I was the only one odd enough to love wet, chilly days like this.” She laughed mildly, waiting for a response.

            “No, I love this weather, there’s something so fragile and magical about the world after a cold rain, you can feel it and smell it, like everything’s new again and you can start fresh.”

             Rosa smiled, it was nice to have someone share her point of view, it was nice to have someone to speak to at all. As if the woman could read her thoughts she spoke up again, “You don’t get many people trying to start conversations, do you?” “I noticed you’re rather quiet on your routes.”

            The question startled her, “You’ve been on my bus before?” “I would have thought I’d have noticed you.”

            The woman smiled, “I’m not always very loud myself, and in my experience sometimes we only see what we are searching for.” Rosa thought about this for a moment, the conversation was drifting uncomfortably into more personal territory, and yet she didn’t want it to stop just yet.

            “I suppose that’s true, but why would I be searching for anything?”

            The woman smiled wider, “I think only you can answer that question.”

              Rosa stared at the woman for a moment out of the corner of her eye, pondering another response before bringing the bus to a stop. She was slightly crestfallen to see the woman rise to get off. She touched Rosa’s shoulder lightly as she stood, “I hope you figure it out, it was nice talking to you,” she smiled wide at Rosa, before reaching down under her seat. It was then that Rosa realized what had been odd about the woman’s eyes as the she took hold of the dog Rosa had failed to notice laying beneath the seat: she was blind. 

            “But..how did you know that you’d been on my bus before?

            The woman took a step off the bus and replied, “I could feel your presence, you always feel sad, you should change that.”

            Rosa took a deep breath and tried to find her words, “It was nice talking to you too.” She whispered before closing the doors and continuing on her route. The rest of the day went as usual, more stops, more lives, but most of them were as gray as the sky. Rosa had noticed a long time ago how when each person got on that they went out of their way to find a seat unoccupied by anyone else. So that by the end of the day each person was seated alone by the window or standing, very rarely would anyone sit next to a stranger. It was as if the whole world was secretly made of recluses and that it took a task as simple as finding a seat on the bus to reveal that part of their personality. That, when strangers were brought together in a confined space, the entire world became as shy as she was. Strangely enough, it usually made her feel less alone, however, today it only made her feel more so. She almost wanted to bring the bus to a sudden stop out of nowhere and shake each and every life into a seat occupied by another that they had never encountered and in doing so, perhaps rub some of that same light the blind woman had rubbed into her, into everyone else. That maybe, in introducing one life into another that she might introduce a new chance at life itself.

            But instead she kept to her route, kept to each stop until finally the end of the day arrived and she could finally make her final stop: home. The blind woman never left her mind neither did any of the other lives. The children with the potential to be as bright and colorful or dismal and gray as the adults that raised them, the elderly whose chance to shine had already passed, and her own life. Her mind was exhausted from the excessive flow of thoughts the day had brought as she made herself a cup of tea, and climbed into bed. She yawned and reached for the remote to turn on the television to check the next day’s weather before she went to sleep.