Her boyfriend had called late last night after she returned home from work and asked her to come see him. The entire day she had felt as though she had feet made of lead and looked forward to nothing but a good nights sleep before her afternoon shift the following day. That wasn't going to be possible if she went to see him,though, as she needed to switch shifts and pull half the hours and then give the other 4 hours to another girl. It would have been easier if he came to her, but she would take any time she could get no matter how it needed to happen.
Everything was going perfectly for her, though, and she had managed to get in just after work to have her hair and nails done before running back home to change into her dress. She was hurried, but still getting everything accomplished. She walked down the hallway of her apartment and stepped onto the elevator to the first floor. She listened to the small bell as she passed each floor until the car made a gentle bump and came to rest on the ground floor before the doors clicked open. The doorman smiled at her and she checked her hat one more time in the lobby mirror before walking outside and down the sidewalk to the corner.
The heels of her shoes clicked a staccato as she walked down the street towards the bus stop. She glanced at the small silver watch on her wrist and smiled to herself that she had managed to accomplish everything and still had the right to claim that she did so with twenty minutes to spare .
The usually quiet street was bustling with afternoon traffic rushing either to or from work. She sat at the bus stop and rechecked her lipstick in a small silver compact and then folded it back up to put inside the purse on her lap. A man in a dark blue suit with one of those old fedora hats was sitting on the opposite side of the bench quietly reading the newspaper. He held the paper in front of him in a way that seemed impossible when she tried to do it. The wind always blowing over one edge or another making managing the paper as much effort as the reading in the bright sun. His right leg was crossed over his left and he casually swung his foot back and forth as he read. She glanced at her watch again. The bus was still ten minutes away. She looked up the street just as anyone waiting does, somehow believing that by looking it would make the bus appear in the distance and that we could somehow pull it towards us faster than if it did it all by itelf. She glanced again at her watch. Only another minute. She grimmaced slightly realizing that she couldn't decide which aspect of time was more irritating; the feeling that she didn't have enough, or suddenly confronted with the reality that she had more than she wanted at the moment.
The silence was driving her crazy and as her frustration built inside of her she grasped for anything she could find to pass the time. Simple conversation might have helped, but the only thing she could think to talk about was the bus that wasn't approaching.
"I hate waiting for things I have no control over. I don't know how you can stay so calm and I feel like I am coming apart all over."
"Mmmmhm"
"That's it? Mmmhmm?? That's all he could think of? She didn't really feel like talking anymore, but her mouth snapped open before she could stop it.
"Well how is it that you can do it and I can't?"
"What do you mean exactly?"
"Well how is it that two people in the exact same place and doing the same thing can have such completely different outlooks? I mean...We've been sitting here for 45 minutes waiting for a bus that isn't coming. And the longer I sit here the more irritated I am becoming and you seem to be becoming even more relaxed than you were when I got here."
"Well , why are you irritated?"
The opening was surely not intended for her to launch into a self vindicating diatribe, but her thoughts let loose the reigns of her tongue before prudence could ensure the saddle of restraint was tight around the horse.
"I'm irritated because I left work early to get my hair and my nails done before I got on the bus and spent more time than I can afford to lose from work making sure I had a nice dress on and was here early. It pisses me off that I spent all this time to prepare so that I can sit here in the sun in a dress that's now all sweaty. I feel like I wasted all that time looking no better than when I started."
"Wow. I can see how that would be rather irritating"
She glanced again at her watch for what must have been the tenth or twelfth time.
"So how is it that you aren't as mad as I am?"
He turned the page of the newspaper and replied casually "That's because I'm not waiting for a bus"
"Wait. You mean to tell me that you are aren't waiting for a bus at all?"
"Nope"
"Well that doesn't make any sense at all. Why are you sitting at a bus stop if you aren't waiting to get onto a bus?
"I could say the same about you, you know"
"What's that supposed to mean? I AM sitting here an I AM getting on to a bus!"
"Well that's all a matter of perspective,now, isn't it?"
She looked at him the way a person peers into a display case and can't quite focus on the contents through the glass. What was underneath she had no idea if she even wanted to buy , but still felt the need to taste it or try it on. He continued slowly as she pondered him curiously.
"I sit on a bus stop and yet I am not waiting for a bus. You wait for a bus, and yet one is not here while you wait on the bench. Is one any different or more correct than the other?"
"Well so what's it to you what I am doing on this bus stop? I mean, who are you to question what I am doing here"
The man looked at her with a very placid stare and replied. "Im not. YOU are the one seeking the answer to something. Not me."
The statements bluntness took her aback for a moment, but she had to admit it was totally true. He had asked nothing of her whatsoever and it was herself who was looking for a vindication for a behavior he had already refused to have to deal with. That irritated her even more, however.
"Who in the Hell sits waiting for a bus if they have no intention of getting on one? That's...illogical."
"Any more illogical than to presuppose one person's perception is more logical than the other by applying their own sense of urgency and relevance to something that is not what it seems?"
"Well that's obviously not the same thing, now is it?. If you are going to be doing something that looks like what other people expect it to be, then you should be wanting what it is that it looks like what you are doing?
"Isn't it?"
He took the brief pause she afforded him as she tried to collect her thoughts for a response before the moment was lost.
"You've decided that there is a difference between the two of us that is, somehow, critical to who is more rational. While it appears we are both doing exactly the same thing, it is simply your view of what you believe I should be feeling while I do exactly what you are doing that has you making the judgement. It is very true that I sit on a bus stop with no intention at all of going on a bus today. I will give you that. I have absolutely no intention of doing what it is it appears I should be doing or what others think, But it is not what I am doing that makes it illogical. It is that you have every intention of getting on to a bus and yet there is no bus to be found. It is not what we are doing that is relevant. It is how we are percieving what it is that we are doing, and what may or not be implied by seeing it that way.
"So if we are both in the same place doing the same thing, then there must be something completely different about how I percieve what you are doing that has you so calm and relaxed and has me spun through the roof"
"Yup. Young lady, THAT is the first thing you've said that is completely logical. So what is it?"
"But you are doing nothing."
"What does it matter that I am actually doing nothing if everyone thinks I am?"
"Well then why do it?"
"Because I can and it's no ones business other than my own why I am here at all."
She thought for a moment realizing she was both fascinated with this conversation as much as she was perplexed and frustrated by it. She opened her mouth to speak and then lowered her head to look at her shoes again. One deep breath passed and then she looked across the street to a point in space where she thought she could ground herself before answering him.The man returned to reading his newspaper as nonchalantly as he was before while the woman juggled thoughts.
Her mind swirled back and forth between what she was doing and what she had intended. It was as though she never gave a second thought to idea that getting on to a bus could be anything but exactly what was stated, and yet as she sat there in the sun, it was beginning to seem as though nothing was as inconsequential as it seemed. Her entire day and everything that had led up to this event went exactly as she had expected and the failure of this one bus to not show when and where it was supposed to could have been such an easy target for the cause of all her frustration. It had been so very easy before to look at the one link in the chain that failed to hold and apply the blame to it as a way of justifying the activities that led up to it. And the bus wasn't the only one. She did it all the time with almost anything. And yet here, this time, she sat feeling nothing for the bus itself and began questioning the overzealous actions that gave more creedence to the importance of the bus which wasn't even here,rather than to what she had done.
"What kind of person is he to put my life into such a spin when , when he did nothing but sit on a bus stop?" she thought to herself. It wasn't he who did this to me, it was me. She sat and brooded and thought about asking him if he was an angel or a devil.
The man stood up and folded the newspaper before putting it under his arm and then adjusted his hat. She hadn't even noticed that he was no longer in the front of the bench. She caught sight of his shadow that passed over her as he put his hand onto her shoulder and whispered "An angel", and then he turned to walked down the street.
She watched him pass between the shop windows and the trees on the side of the street before turning the corner and simply walking away as though he were no more real than a thought or a dream.
What had just happened? What was she actually mad at? Was she mad that she was the one who was required to come instead of her boyfriend?? Was she mad that she had spent time getting overly prepared or was she mad that what she attempted to succeed at was ruined completely simply by the innability of a bus to show up? Was she going to be seen as doing less than was what was expected of her solely because of the bus, or was there some form of recompense and appreciation for the effort even if it didn't show?
Suddenly her entire day, and her life, was a swirling mass of questions caused by an unassuming little man who made an impromptu appearence in her life, and a bus which should have been there and wasn't? Are all things really this connected? The bus still had not appeared when she began to assemble everything into a cohesive string of thought.
She had lost sleep for a person who asked her to come when it would have been easier for him to do so. Not just this time but every time. It took more out of her in every way to make these meetings possible than he cared to worry aboutf. Maybe that isn't his fault directly, but he was aware of it. But I did it anyway. She had lost a half a day of wages working, and spent another half looking the way he expected her to? That,again, not his fault, but it was important for him to have her look good. Maybe that is just a little too much to put upon herself if he isn't happy with the way she is. And now, she is feeling the pressure of not being where she is supposed to be when she is supposed to be there and becoming agitated at a bus that has absolutely no bearing on her life any more or less than anyone else.
Is this how we become? Making excuses where we don't need them at all and then applying others to things that are usefull to justify them but irrelevant? She had the overwhelming feeling that all she needed to do was simply excuse herself by saying the bus didn't come, but she knew it wouldn't fly. No matter what is done, no one would even care what the effort was or the intention as long as everything, even those things beyond her control, weren't present. She would fail. And it wasn't the failing that was so bad except that it was her exact opposite intention that would fall to the floor. It would be seen as not enough.
Things needed to change. Not just with the bus that would not show but with everything that she put an undue amount of effort into to be exploited as the excuse for others not doing what they should have.
At that moment a large bus turned into the spot in front of the small bench. The brakes pads squeeled and it lurched to a stop with a large hiss of air that blew dust from the gutter into the air. The driver grabbed onto the side of the steering wheel as he reached over to pull the door latch open. His hat was cocked on the side of his head and sweat poured down his cheeks.
"You waiting for a bus, lady?" he asked in a dull monotonous tone the suggested he had done it far too many times. For as many times as he had said it in the past however, there was never a time when it had meant so very much.
"No" she replied. "I'm not waiting for a bus. I'm just....sitting."
"Why are you on a bus stop if you aren't waiting for a bus?"
The woman smirked inwardly and then remembered her new plan. She eyed the driver cooly saying
"What would it matter to you whether I was waiting for a bus or not. You are late anyway."
"Hey lady, I can't help it if the bus runs late. I'm just a bus driver. Things happen."
"I know, and I can't help it if I am not waiting for a bus anymore. I'm just a woman on a bus stop. Things happen."
The driver looked at her with an expression that suggested the very same response she or any other person would have made had they not just had a conversation with an angel. He resignedly leaned back over and pulled the doors shut. She looked at her reflection in the doors for just a moment. Same woman. Same dress that was still too hot to be wearing in sun so bright. But her face had changed. She wasn't anxious anymore. The small crease above her forehead she had always assumed was an aspect of genetics was absent.
The bus turned into the street and trundled past her leaving a cloud of exhaust to continue on its day.
