Category: The bus

Sunday, 4 October. I am writing this from a chair, after the week, and the week was smaller than the word travel usually promises.

Thursday was the afternoon bus, the last one out, late by one stop. Yellow seat covers, red curtains, a window on the left, and a black bag under the seat across the aisle that was not mine. Friday was the room. The key worked the second time. The curtains did not meet. The light lay on the floor until it thinned, and I left the key on the sill. Saturday I stayed in. I ate, I slept, and I looked out at the same pale building. I did not invent an outing so the page would have another event. The bag sat on the chair by the lamp for most of that day. I did not unpack all of it.

A week away can feel thin if you arrive wanting every day to become a story you could tell standing up. This one stays thin, and I am content with that. The parts I would keep are small. A window seat when the board was wrong. A radiator under the glass. Getting off where I meant to. A Saturday that asked for nothing and got nothing extra from me.

So the record stays with those things. I am in the chair, the bag is closed, and the week is written as it was. If little happened, that is still what it held. I would take the same shape again: one late ride, one plain room, and a day that did not need filling.

Friday, 2 October. The key worked on the second try, and the window was already letting the last of the light into the room.

The room was plain. A bed with a rumpled cover, a wooden headboard, and heavy curtains that did not quite meet in the middle. Through the gap I could see a balcony rail and a pale building across the way. I left the gap as it was. The light came through the cloth in long bars and landed on the floor, warm, and on the foot of the bed. A radiator sat under the glass. I put the key on the sill, the tag turned down, so I would see it before I went out again.

I sat on the edge of the bed and took my shoes off. The cover was already creased. I do not know if that was from the person before me or from the way the bed had been left. I did not straighten it. Straightening would have made the hour look arranged. The light moved while I sat there. It started on the floorboards, climbed a little onto the hem of the curtain, and then thinned. When I stood, the room was dimmer, and the building outside was only a shape.

I wrote nothing that evening except the time I came in. The key stayed on the sill. The window stayed as I found it. A room like that can stay unnamed. It held a bed, a curtain that would not close, and the end of the day on the floor. I slept with the gap still open. The morning was ordinary, which was enough.

Thursday, 1 October. The afternoon bus was the last one out, and it stopped one place later than the board had said.

I took the window on the left. The seat covers were a hard yellow, and red curtains hung at the glass, tied so a person could still see past them. A black bag sat under the seat across the aisle. It was not mine. Someone had pushed it in far enough that a foot would miss it. I kept my own bag on my lap until the bus moved, then set it by my shoes. The aisle was narrow. Two rows ahead, a coat lay over a headrest, and nobody reached for it while I watched.

We waited at the stop longer than the board allowed. When the bus pulled away, nobody called the next places. I watched the buildings thin. At the following stop a person got on, looked along the yellow seats, and sat two rows behind me. They did not speak. I did not either. The curtain on my side slipped, and I tied it again, badly, so a strip of the glass stayed open. Outside, the light was already going flat.

I got off where I meant to. That was not the stop written on the board. The driver did not name it. I stood, took my bag, and stepped down. The yellow seats kept other people’s quiet. That is the ride as I have it: late by one stop, a window, and a bag under a seat that was not mine. I would take the same afternoon bus again if the board is wrong in that same small way.