2003-08-31 - 11:10 a.m.
It is a strange thing to be tied up tight in small wriggling knot of people at the door to a city bus and hear somebody laughing.
It's a very hot Friday afternoon and everybody wants to get out of town and everybody wants to get on this bus because to miss it means waiting in the sun for another half hour and possibly missing your connection at the bus station.
Which if you're like me you're not entirely sure when that is. And when you've got 50 lbs of crap on your back you don't actually give a damn about connections anyways. You just want to get off your feet and out of the sun. So when the bus stops and 20 people swarm around it, you join in.
And since you've already been cut in front of at pharmacies and markets and ticket lines all over town, you let "nice" out the window and kick "wait your turn" in the ass.
Just lean forward into the knot until you are fully twisted up in it. Inextricably. Brace your elbows out to defend your flanks. Twist hard when you feel someone trying to breach your defenses.
As the knot is drawn tighter, mutter (in English, of course) "Don't even think about it, fucker" to the little punk trying to squeeze into the millimeter of space between you and the tiny white haired lady in front of you.
And that is when somebody laughs. And someone else. And two more people behind. So let up your vigilance just enough to look around and see that nearly everyone is smiling.
How odd. Why would anybody be smiling in this hot writhing mass? Why isn't everyone angry and defensive?
Since it is impossible to divine the truth and there's no time to read The Labrynth of Solitude, make a guess. Consider the possibility that there's nothing to be angry or defensive about.
...
Maybe everyone just wants to get on the bus. No hard feelings. No harm done. We all just want to get on the bus.
