Bus Stop

It was the way he looked at you, the way it made your arteries twist into bleeding knots and then, at once, leave you thin and stretched like the film on too-cold soup. You use the toe of your boot to push a piece of gravel into a shallow puddle on the sidewalk, making sure you look up every few moments to see if the bus is coming. Water is making its way through the seams of your left boot. Your sock is absorbing it so that you can feel the coldness slowly climbing your ankle. Again, you raise your eyes to the street, but just in time to see the bus flying past and your body moves in automatic motion, hands flailing outward while something like, “Hey!” or “Stop!” attacks the push of air from the massive vehicle. The driver sees you and swerves towards the curb some ten yards away, slamming the doors open as you approach. The sock in your left boot is particularly wet near the toe-seam and is bunching under, making your movements asymmetric.

Almost missed you there!

Yeah me too.