The Bus Ride

I’ve been taking bus rides as far back as I can remember. It has become part of my everyday life as a student. Heck, it takes a big chunk off my meager allowance. But it is money well spent. My bus rides are the only times when I belong to myself alone.

The 1 hour ride from my rural home to the urban school I go to is full of contrasts and ironies of life. I am a faithful audience to the plight of shanties, of useless crap, which many people call home. I would watch as the peaceful countryside turn into the hub of the city.

During this rides, I would ponder on my life. I would ask myself a million questions which no one can answer. But most of the times, I just look at other people’s faces and wonder  what it’s like to live in their  lives. But I never forward to ask them outright. There was one a lady though who bared her life to me.  I pitied her. Perhaps she had no one to tell her bitterness to that she just singled me out of the fifty or so passengers in the bus without any reason in mind.

That’s  the magic of bus rides.  It takes people connect to others.  Of course , there are exceptions. Impassionate people never feel its magic.

I feel its magic once, so I guess that makes me passionate. He was passionate too. I’m sure of that. I liked him from the moment he stepped inside the bus.  His  mouth slants in a way that tends to smile if slanted further. It was that precursor smile of his that took my breath away. My breath was further snatch when he took the seat beside me. A few moments later, we were involved in a deep conversation. I was exhilarated when I found out that he goes  to the same school as mine.

That same day I saw him in the library. It turned out that he was a voracious reader and always spends his time at the library. What pure luck! I started spending my time at the library too, claiming that I need to study and asking him if it’s okay to accompany him.

Sitting beside him made me aware that my body was a heck of an electrode. I can stay there for the rest of my life. But my class is waiting  and after that my bus ride...

For a long time, our relationship went on like that. There were times when I thought he’d tell me that he liked me too. I always let my eyes go astray on the positive side of the bus. I even did countless novenas and indulgences so that the saints would hear my prayers. I guess the saints telephone line bugged down since my prayers never reached their destination. Still, there were so much reason to believe he’d still pine for me. As long as we take the same bus ride every day, things would just be okay.

Then there came a time when he failed to board  the bus when we halted at his bus stop. I looked at the waiting shed but there was no boy with a smile playing on his lips waiting for his ride. He wasn’t at his usual place at the library too. This went on for a few weeks. I comforted myself by thinking that perhaps he was just on an immediate errand or something.

I didn’t miss him much though. If he wasn’t around in flesh, he never failed to visit in my dreams anyway. So when he took the bus ride with me a few weeks later, I was relieved. But that didn’t stop me from being furious for his not showing up. I rattled my worries like a baby but then his expression made me stop. He looked like he didn’t know me; like we never took the same bus ride or sat at the same table in the library for four years in college. Or maybe he was seeing me in a new light. At that moment he found out that friendship wasn’t the only thing I was hoping for. His expression said it all. That he cant give what I wanted and that he got someone else. He recounted what happened in the few weeks he was gone. He got his girlfriend pregnant. He’s going to marry her right after graduation. So that explained the disappearance, the out of the blue questions at the library about how girls show someone that they feel something.  And poor blind me, I babbled on things to encourage him hoping that it was  me on his mind.

Funny but it was the bus ride I was thinking when I should have slapped him in the face and wife that ridiculous  little smile off his face.  I was thinking how I believed so much in passion and the magic of bus rides and how it connects to people taking them. I thinking how the people who lived in the shanties I passed by everyday were luckier for not going through the pain that slicing my soul at that moment.

I never shed a single tear. I was pretty sure he’d tell me he’s not worth crying if I did. And the pride in me of never divulging one’s feelings to the guy in question at that time ran strongly through my veins.

Finally graduation came, I went through the rites without any enthusiasm despite the awards I got. I never even kept track what those awards were for. Thanks to him and those library rendezvous, I have to go through the hassles of going up on stage and be burdened with medals.

Then the program ended. He went towards me to congratulate me, him with that smile playing on his lips. His smile was intoxicating that I feigned a meek smile on my lips. His hand clasped mine for a split second then he’s gone. He had to hurry for something. Something about taking a bus ride to a different destination. My bus ride was waiting too and lingering for another moment to savor the feeling of his hand touching mine wouldn’t make my bus ride wait for me.

We all have  our own bus rides. He used to take mine but he reached his own destination.  He has no other choice but to take another bus ride that would take him to who knows where.

Until today, I still take the same bus ride. Sometimes when the bus pauses at the shed where he used to take the ride, I would hold my breath half expecting  he would come in and take the seat next to me.  For the whole destination of the trip, I still wonder what the other passengers have for a life. But there’s still another question waiting to be asked. If there would come a time when we bump into each other in the same bus ride...