Settling my sweat-dripping hands onto the gaudy yellow railing, I surrendered my debilitated body
onto the cracks of the corner behind the bus's stairways. Sandwiched between the sinewy legs of a
rather towering, daunting figure of a rugby player and the rear end of a petite businessman boiling in
his immaculate thick tux, the stench was inevitable. With people coarct like hens in a cage, the
putrid pong came flooding in like venomous gas - the bus was a gustatory hell pit. An odour so
poignant, is as if a taste on my tongue of it was almost palpable. Horrid. Willing to distract myself
from this merciless scene of being squeezed into a pancake, my eyes scanned the empty crevasses
between the flood of bodies. Across from me, an empty seat eyed me, beckoning my name in
echoes. The seat seemed so close yet so far, as I imagined the daunting parkour around the bodies if
I dare take to reach it. Besides, the confined seat seemed almost just as airless and uncomfortable,
its space barely able to accommodate a seat for a child. Its once aquamarine blue fabric dotted with
lurid stripes was now a sordid brownish colour, its colour palette defaced by accidental coffee spills.
Its “cushion” didn’t make it any more welcoming as the seat’s metal backbones emerged through
the paper-thin layer of fabric that enveloped it barely.
A few seats down, a mother sat sluggishly as her apple to her eye nestled on her thighs, his thumb
glued to his lips. With one hand lightly ringed around her child’s bulging waist, the mother had her
eyes weighed low, heavy from parental duty. Her pale, poorly calloused hand, that had ringed
around the bulging stomach of her Michelin-like baby, juxtaposed her little one’s silk, milk-like hands
and his soft, naturally rosy bulbous cheeks. The child suckled on his similarly pink thumb, his eyes
bulbous and full of innocence and sheer satisfaction. The thumb pops out the toddler’s thumb and at
a distance glance, it appeared as if almost eroded significantly by the perennial sucking - almost
skinless and exceptionally redder than his own cheeks. Petrified at the sight of an ugly red hue on his
finger, the child’s waterworks began erupting, his tears bursting free like a restricted dam that could
no longer hold its content. The mother jolted her head in confusion. Her head that once drooped like
a wilting flower immediately positioned upright alike a freshly sprung bud, revived from her brief
nap. The resolution compromised with some nonchalant pats on the back and a prolonged “hush”
from the mother to placate the child.
Not far from the parent and child, a group instilled vexation into other passengers with their
obnoxious uproar. A group of boys, they were. A team of spry, amiable, ecstatic young wolves,
sprouting into the phases of adulthood and soon venturing into the real world. The wolves had their
hands interchained together, their bond stronger as a pack as they hovered over an amusing game
of football framed within a phone screen. They whispered in loud silence, their hushes louder than
the boisterous shrill of the bus's AC. By minute, the whispers placated and eventually sinewed into a
deafening silence. For a moment, it was a period of solace after a day of fatigue. But, the painful
silence from them was too good to be true. Soon enough, heavy feet began to stomp, sending the
bus in a precarious vibration. A brouhaha ensued explosively as the pack of wolves howled in
hysterics. A dozen of shushing here and there and lifted bushy eyebrows from the elderly was
enough to tame the young wolves. Giggling like toddlers, they made their way out the decrepit doors
disappearing into night’s darkness.
onto the cracks of the corner behind the bus's stairways. Sandwiched between the sinewy legs of a
rather towering, daunting figure of a rugby player and the rear end of a petite businessman boiling in
his immaculate thick tux, the stench was inevitable. With people coarct like hens in a cage, the
putrid pong came flooding in like venomous gas - the bus was a gustatory hell pit. An odour so
poignant, is as if a taste on my tongue of it was almost palpable. Horrid. Willing to distract myself
from this merciless scene of being squeezed into a pancake, my eyes scanned the empty crevasses
between the flood of bodies. Across from me, an empty seat eyed me, beckoning my name in
echoes. The seat seemed so close yet so far, as I imagined the daunting parkour around the bodies if
I dare take to reach it. Besides, the confined seat seemed almost just as airless and uncomfortable,
its space barely able to accommodate a seat for a child. Its once aquamarine blue fabric dotted with
lurid stripes was now a sordid brownish colour, its colour palette defaced by accidental coffee spills.
Its “cushion” didn’t make it any more welcoming as the seat’s metal backbones emerged through
the paper-thin layer of fabric that enveloped it barely.
A few seats down, a mother sat sluggishly as her apple to her eye nestled on her thighs, his thumb
glued to his lips. With one hand lightly ringed around her child’s bulging waist, the mother had her
eyes weighed low, heavy from parental duty. Her pale, poorly calloused hand, that had ringed
around the bulging stomach of her Michelin-like baby, juxtaposed her little one’s silk, milk-like hands
and his soft, naturally rosy bulbous cheeks. The child suckled on his similarly pink thumb, his eyes
bulbous and full of innocence and sheer satisfaction. The thumb pops out the toddler’s thumb and at
a distance glance, it appeared as if almost eroded significantly by the perennial sucking - almost
skinless and exceptionally redder than his own cheeks. Petrified at the sight of an ugly red hue on his
finger, the child’s waterworks began erupting, his tears bursting free like a restricted dam that could
no longer hold its content. The mother jolted her head in confusion. Her head that once drooped like
a wilting flower immediately positioned upright alike a freshly sprung bud, revived from her brief
nap. The resolution compromised with some nonchalant pats on the back and a prolonged “hush”
from the mother to placate the child.
Not far from the parent and child, a group instilled vexation into other passengers with their
obnoxious uproar. A group of boys, they were. A team of spry, amiable, ecstatic young wolves,
sprouting into the phases of adulthood and soon venturing into the real world. The wolves had their
hands interchained together, their bond stronger as a pack as they hovered over an amusing game
of football framed within a phone screen. They whispered in loud silence, their hushes louder than
the boisterous shrill of the bus's AC. By minute, the whispers placated and eventually sinewed into a
deafening silence. For a moment, it was a period of solace after a day of fatigue. But, the painful
silence from them was too good to be true. Soon enough, heavy feet began to stomp, sending the
bus in a precarious vibration. A brouhaha ensued explosively as the pack of wolves howled in
hysterics. A dozen of shushing here and there and lifted bushy eyebrows from the elderly was
enough to tame the young wolves. Giggling like toddlers, they made their way out the decrepit doors
disappearing into night’s darkness.
