random story

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I stop to sit. The faces, the arms, the legs-- the boring bodies of flesh and lines-- walk by me, laughing and looking, stupid and unknowing. I look past them, lost in reverie. Incubated in secrecy, I’m sitting on a bench, under a tree, pretending to read.


But, really, I can’t get what she said out of my head. Her fervor and sweaty forehead and hurried words, I replay the conversation over and over. We were standing in the kitchen.


“I never told you what he said to me when I ran into him yesterday,” she’s eating cereal sloppily and I keep looking away because she disgusts me. It smells like rave incense everywhere and I’m only staying to hear what she says. “It was at the bus stop. Not the school bus stop, but the buses than run all around the city and campus area.”

I nod to her, halfway interested, halfway knowing it’s going to be some ridiculous analysis of a harmless comment. She opens her mouth and I keep picturing soy milk falling out of her mouth and dripping onto the black concrete floor. I can barely listen.


“So we both get on the bus and it’s really crowded. We’re both holding onto the handrails above our heads and it’s hot and sticky. For no reason, he looks over at me and says, ‘you know what I’d do if this bus crashed? I’d place you in the seat and hold on to you.’ It felt so intimate. And then he got off at the next stop.”


We departed to pursue our daily routines after that. All day I’ve been thinking of it, why he said it to her. I keep seeing his letter over and over before my eyes. Did he mean it for me?
The leaves wave at me atop the heads and bodies. She seemed so happy as she walked off.