So, the fucking bus is lurching along to the rhythm of the big black beast's cries for the final end, and I am sitting in a seat near the back, alone, worrying. Always worrying, it has come to be, on the fucking bus. Mostly about things such as if the creepy man/woman/thing either is predisposed to slit my throat when I get off the fucking bus, or it they have some fatal disease that spreads through air. Or if the fucking bus will hit the curb at an off angle and fall into a never ending roll that just keeps going, crashing into buildings and other cars and tearing foundations and on and on…

I guess I'm a bit fearful of death. The big unknown. No one knows what the hell might happen there in 'Death,' so it's not that absurd a fear. Right? Right.

I mean, it's going to happen. Someday I'm going to wake up and be in the afterlife/heaven/hell/underworld. Or maybe I wont wake up at all, and then woah, it will hit my forever unconscious self that I'm dead. And I don't want to panic in my forever sleeping state, because who knows, that could jinx me and I could be panicking forever, all of the rest of eternity I would have been (presumably) blessed with craved silence.

But I don't have the right atmosphere to birth and coddle these sorts of thoughts, not here on this
gross
dirty
smelly
infested
fucking
bus.

Someone's approaching me. Coming too close to me and my seat, my closed off, protected, clean, freako free zone. I have enough pride, enough fatherly/motherly/family/sibling/lover pride for this seat, I would/could/(hope to) claim it as my own country. Give it a creative name. Not just Jamestown, though that is what every other monarch with my given name has called their land. And it would just be two seats. Hardly a country, or even a town.

But this person. They sit down in front of me. It's a girl, and she doesn't smell, a fact that extracts one of those elusive brownie points from me and is given to her, however these transaction sort of things work. But only one. Because regardless of her cleanliness (and she isn't Jesus/Virgin Mary clean, as I can smell the smoky residue of a vice of hers clinging to her clothing) they are intruding my space. My fucking bus space.

We sit in silence as the fucking bus starts moving again, the driver not having to feign care for the passengers now that we all are situated, and I come to terms with the fact that she will neither do anything vile against me or try to initiate anything pleasant, like light conversation. So I content myself by watching her hair bounce slightly with the movement of the fucking bus. Her hair is pulled back. It's blonde technically, but the color is dancing on the edge of brown, the hue stealing some dark and mixing it all in. I'd probably say it was a light brown from far away, but I'm not too knowledgeable with hair color.

It's comforting. I don't know why.

I sort of want to touch it, to see if it's soft or thick or frail or burned. I manage to control myself. That would be pretty weird, I think. Put me with the other freakthings on the fucking bus.

We get into a sort of routine, or that's at least what I call our group of actions. I sit, she sits. After about fifteen minutes of this, in which I entertain myself with idle, light thoughts that float stupidly around in my skull, she reaches out a hand (unmanacured) to push the yellow strip, which the fucking bus responds with an obnoxious sort of ding/beep/bark/growl sound. I've rode this thing enough times to know what that means. She's getting off.

That realization makes me sort of sad.

I realize I've wanted to say something to her, but I don't know how to go about this.

The fucking bus stop is coming closer, a bench and a sign on a pole in the ground, both nestled between a dying tree and squat bushes. There is a slight tension visible in her neck, her back, her arms. She's going to stand up, take four, maybe five steps to the back door, push it open and step onto the curb, and then I'll hate myself for not saying something.

I open my mouth slightly, feeling my tongue separate from the roof of my mouth with an inaudible pop. A small amount of air rushes in my mouth as I inhale a bit. The first step.

Still, nothing comes to mind. Not like my intentions are to woo her into marrying me or anything. She has a boyfriend, I'm sure. I'd just like to have a small moment of her attention, a brain cell or two devoted forever for holding the memory of me saying something to her. Even if it is something entirely stupid.

I exhale, a tiny sound emitting due to the movement of my lungs, which are still nestled inside my chest under a bunch of skin and bone and sinew and tissue. Actually, I'm not sure if there is sinew. I could ask her about that.

This chick must be the type to plan ahead, because she stands up. Goddammit. I have to say something now, or she'll be off to the door and the only way for me to speak to her would be to yell, and I don't want to do that. I'm not even sure I can yell.

I close my mouth, because of course it was sitting slightly open through my entire tirade of thoughts, and then open it again.

"You have really pretty hair." It was the only thing I could think of. My resolve suddenly left me in the middle of my statement, so 'really' might not have been heard, but hopefully the rest of it traveled through the air to her.

She looks at me like she doesn't agree, but then smiles. I get a "Thanks" in return before she walks over to the door, (six steps) and pushes it open with the same hand she pushed the yellow button, making me think she was left handed. And then she's on the curb and the fucking bus is off again, the only difference is it's without that girl.

I don't hate myself.