Not all me, anyway.
Long Winded Rides
The motion of the bus is somewhat less than relaxing, a jerky series of starts and stops that nearly sends him toppling over sideways with a muttered swear; he manages to stay upright and mentally thanks whatever divine power happens to be listening at the moment that the seat next to him is unoccupied and likely to remain that way. He wonders again just why the hell he thought the middle seat of the bus was a good idea, the sideways seating directly atop the joint of the double-length bus gets all the bounces and bumps, and feels rather like a roller coaster at times. Normally this would not be that distressing, but the narrowness of the seat and the width of his own legs have him crushed against a metal pole where the bus's steady rise and fall (he briefly fancies that the bus is a living, breathing thing and then stops. Personifying the thing would only make it worse) compresses and releases his own legs, which take umbrage at the constant assault on their persons.
He's tired (having come from his job), and everyone else on the bus seems to share his problem—it's quiet, and nobody seems to be particularly inclined to do much of anything beyond staring morosely out of the window at the streets going by. He would do the same, but he's so tired that he decides to give napping on the bus a try. He'll wake up before his stop, and if he doesn't, well, the end of the line is pretty close to his apartment anyway. An extra two or three minutes of walking won't kill him.
It has always been a concern of his that his expression is too easily readable, though every time he's chanced to look in the mirror whilst smiling he hasn't been able to tell much beyond the slightest upturn at the corners of his mouth (he wonders if he's just so afraid of showing emotion that he subconsciously suppresses it, even when he's trying hard not to care about how silly he might look). This has very little to do with his own inability to ever really relax into a nap in public (though he's started to relax more and more, possibly because of a concerted effort to grab sleep where and when he can get it these days, as he's never sure when he'll actually fall asleep at night), though there is probably a connection between the two.
Either way, this time he manages to close his eyes, swaying gently with the motions of the bus, focusing on the drone of the engine noise to get his mind to wander. He dreams.
In his dream, there's a woman (there's always a woman, it seems) in some sort of danger; a collapsing...something or other. He, of course, must be in the hero's role (if he were not in the hero's role in his own dreams, it would probably mean something terrible), and rushes in to save the day. Only he lacks some of the unique hero-qualities—most notably the ability to not only save the day, but escape unharmed. His dream goes from rescuing the woman to being crushed under a pile of bricks, to being dragged to a hospital to spend some quality time there. The rescued woman is nowhere to be seen, which, he figures, is typical of this sort of situation.
He jerks awake, courtesy of a particularly short stop by the bus driver (he hates taking the later bus, the drivers are terrible) and grumpily considers the implications of having a brick wall fall on the bus driver. On the bright side, he notices a far more comfortable seat is now open, and relocates quickly before someone else notices the same thing. This seat is wider, and to celebrate he places his bag next to him to discourage any new passengers from sitting down next to him.
It's not that he doesn't like talking to new people—well, it is that he doesn't like talking to new people; there's a lot of putting up various defenses to keep from revealing too much in too short a time, there's the question of not coming off as a madman (which he does, from time to time, revel in for the hell of it), and there's trying not to unwittingly offend the other person (another thing he's incredibly paranoid about, and with no good reason. He's always been rather good with people, but it never ceases to worry him)—but buses are hardly places for conversation (though he did meet a fascinating man by the name of James one day, and if he were to encounter him on a future ride he'd gladly speak with him again. Something about a genial old man with a brown suit and matching fedora taking slugs out of a bottle of some rot-gut gin and reminiscing about his girlfriend's Southern cooking was incredibly compelling).
Whilst on the bus he sometimes goes around from person to person, piecing together life stories based on one-sided conversations held with telephones (vile things, he feels that the world would have far less yelling if they weren't around) and trying to write Humanity in his head. Many of the stories he comes up with are depressing things, stories of people trying to make ends meet in a country that doesn't want them, has never wanted them (despite its protestations to the contrary). Sometimes he sees too much of himself in the people on the bus and recoils, wishing that he owned a car so that he could avoid this entire mess.
He doesn't have a car, of course—and from the looks of his own situation, he's not likely to own a car for a long time yet—so he's stuck with the bus, which galls him, or a taxi (which would bankrupt him). No, he must resign himself to the bus. The bus, which (he suspects) is nothing more than a machine for people who have nowhere to be, because it sure as hell doesn't have the ability to get anywhere within a reasonable amount of time.
He tries to sleep again, but now the bus is stuck in traffic, and the constant starting and stopping makes it nigh on impossible, so he gives up and stares out the window, trying to reassure himself that he'll be home soon.
The faces of the other passengers all seem slack and lifeless, save for a small girl who appears genuinely excited to be on the bus. For a moment, he smiles and feels like perhaps the bus isn't that bad after all; he used to envy the kids who rode the bus to school when he was younger (of course, that could have been because he had to walk to school), one more in a series of things that other kids were able to do that he never got the chance to try out until much later. Reflecting upon this, he wryly thinks that this is one experience he could have done without.
The bus finally approaches his stop, and he gratefully hops off, feeling like he's somehow escaped in one piece and that alone is an accomplishment of sorts. He's got some new ideas, perhaps, from some of his fellow passengers, and certainly he'll have to try napping again to see if he can't avoid the hospital in his dreams this time. The bus lumbers off, trailing smoke behind it like some fat, lazy dragon that spends its time eating TV dinners while its mother inquires why it hasn't been out to eat some nice young maidens.
He laughs at the thought, a loud laugh that would echo if not for all the traffic noise. Several passers-by stare at him curiously, and this time, he merely shrugs and heads down the street leading to his apartment, whistling.
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