Stories tagged “bus”
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A Silent World
Harold’s world was colorful, scented, textured, and even flavored, but very quiet. Harold was born deaf. This didn’t stop him. He was up and running the minute his legs could support him. he climbed to the highest branches to see the whole ...
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How not to fit in. Part 1; It all started when challenge.
It all started when he sat next to her on the bus. It was her first day of school. High School, Fall of 1965. Maria had just arrived in the United States & she spoke very little English. The only words she knew were from bits of popular songs she h...
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How not to fit in Part 2, It all started when challenge.
Glares and whispers followed her as she walked down the narrow aisle of the bus. Her unease grew as she looked for a seat. She felt as if everyone on the bus were staring at her. Relieved she found an empty seat & sat down. She hunkered down into t...
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Clues on the Bus
I left her a three dollar and twenty-one cent tip. Then I walked to the bus station. The one that was like greyhound, only local. I hopped on a bus that was blue. It wasn’t red, but it wasn’t yellow either. I sat in the third row, left hand...
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She is but a blind mute, and I a ghost
The thrum of the diesel engines mixes with the hiss of hydraulics as the rolling carapace allows passengers into its warmth. She steps in on the third stop since my own boarding. She doesn’t return the smile from the operator as she pays her dues...
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The Treble Zero
“Beckwith Road” muttered the faceless passenger. Yet another ten minute companion on Colin’s route. Only the sixteenth of the week, five days in. Colin had become acutely aware of the most mundane statistics in his time driving the Al...
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Maybe a Good Night?
I heard Nathaniel’s sentence stop in the middle. I could tell that he had more to say, but I didn’t feel like wriggling it out of him. Once upon a time I would have. I’d learned how to understand their expressions, tones, and other th...
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Route 56
The bus hurtles forward sending fallen leaves spread across the thin streets spinning in its wake, and naked trees dripping with self-pity and ice fly by as the winter cold permeates his entire being. He rests his head against the window and breathes a...
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Is This Seat Taken?
I got back to my room with fresh bruises and a couple of scratches. One of my mother’s heels had made contact and slashed my wrist. It wasn’t deep, but it was bleeding. I cleaned it up and put a bandaid over it before I passed out on my bed...
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On a Moving Bus
Everyone sits so still and stagnant it’s difficult to believe that the foundation they rest upon is in constant motion. There’s a bum sitting in the back, his tattered overcoat pulled protectively around him like a filthy shield. There’s the grou...
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The Man-Boy on the Bus
He says it’s Asperger’s, but everyone knows something else is there. He’s 50, looks 30, thinks 8, and has the hormones of a 13-yr-old. He’s wearing a T-shirt with a donut emblazoned across his round stomach, baggy shorts, black ...
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Why I Hate The Bus
I take this bus to work and back every day. Every day I sit in the seat at the back, tired and miserable. Sometimes I stare out the window at the grey skies and littered streets of my shitty town, but usually I just watch the people I’m forced to...
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When Nobody Is Looking
That girl. The one in the cashmere sweater, and reading glasses. That blond carrying her English textbook and staring at the grass as she walks. The soft-spoken scholar; the awkward outcast. That girl is me, but not really. On the bus, she sits alone. ...
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Easy Travels, Rough Arrival
“I can hear the voices when I’m dreaming, I can hear them say…” The tune rattled around Micah’s brain as he descended the steps of the Greyhound bus. Fourteen hours of idle sitting made itself known with every attempt at n...
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Confessions (I)
“If we’re gonna talk, it’s going to be about you, not me,” I wager. “We’ll do Q & A,” he says. I think about it for a second. The bus ride to club Majesty is long, but do I really want to confess my secrets...
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Love on a bus
Nothing is worse than a crowded bus. I can’t stand it, everything from the cramped seats, especially if you’re tall like me, to feeling like packed sardines with total strangers. However, on this particular trip, there was one shining light...
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Tramp Dog
The smell hit Jack as he stepped onto the bus – a combination of alcohol, urine and rotting vegetables. He made his way to the back and eyed with distaste the tramp who sat alone on the front seat. Under the tramp’s seat lay a small dog ...
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While the World Sleeps
I pulled the phone out of my pocket. The bus was quiet. 3 A.M to Buffalo. Everyone was asleep save an older man with a newspaper in the back of the bus and the pretty girl with the laptop behind me. We cruised across the pavement, a cough here, a grunt...
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The Envelope Pt 2
Rainford might have uttered some words of thanks if he didn’t want to break the heels off her shoes more. He couldn’t say he hated her; she was risking her neck for him and she had some strong qualities about her that he wished his old part...
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Time to Go
The harsh sound of the conductor’s voice woke me up immediately. Sandra’s head was still laying on my shoulder, and she seemed to be in a deep sleep. I didn’t want to wake her, so I had chosen to stare out the window. Then, it finally...
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The Silent Killer
BIOLOGICAL WEAPON A sudden and most foul odour Brought forth a collective cringe. Our souls rushed straight for the door, Each face had a sickly green tinge. But crammed in a corner was I, Face at butt level. And stuck in the death-bus was I, Cursing t...
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After the First Thousand Miles
“Hey, man, you quit bad talking him. He didn’t mean nothing.” The heavy voice from the opposite end of the bus called echolessly forward a stream of curse words in response. I clenched my teeth while listening to the interchange. The ...