A bus journey

I stepped onto the bus on this very cold November morning, welcoming the shelter from outside. Finally rid of the bustling bodies nudging and pushing their way into the queue to find refuge, like me, inside. It had been to my somewhat surprise that the bus had not been late on this morning, which, judging by my experience in the past, was not normal. Or is it now?

The service (or lack of, many a bystander will tell you) is erratic and this leads to frustration which leads to annoyance which had eventually led me to scrap public transport, scrap the environment and inevitably scrap my money, and drive to work. Why should I waste my life, short enough as it is, on a dirty, badly driven bus when there is an obvious alternative?

But today I found myself curiously pondering the question as to whether it is better to be stuck in a traffic jam, behind the wheel, frustrated and irritated by bad drivers and the like, or, be on a bus knowing calmly waiting for the inevitable moment when all the passengers (me included) will walk off the bus and end the ordeal. Could this silver lining be enough to make it all worthwhile?

The transport itself is terrible, yes, but the world in which one travels is every time, fascinating. People, faces, sounds, conversations - all this every day, every morning and evening on the way to and from work. A new situation every time which somehow takes my mind away from the fact that I am traveling, moving, going somewhere. Dreaming somewhere or some place that this all becomes a surreal mix of thoughts and events, blended into a splendid play, executed by a different cast each day.

I will miss this, I know, as I sit behind the steering wheel once more, listening to the same old tunes play on the radio and hoping desperately for the car in front of me to inch another metre southwards, homewards.