A young student in gray scrubs with a:
folder full of documents,
fingers tapping, then trailing across the page,
mouth working,
knuckles cracking, cuticles under attack,
folder closed, oversized backpack shut…
it's time.
A young student in gray scrubs with a:
folder full of documents,
fingers tapping, then trailing across the page,
mouth working,
knuckles cracking, cuticles under attack,
folder closed, oversized backpack shut…
it's time.
A man stops me in an art gallery. He's got the sunken cheeks of a smoker and a fine mustache, and he smells like an ashtray. He puts his backpack on the ground, then reaches out and touches a sculpture mounted on the wall.
”Oops”, he says. “Do not touch. Shoulda known.”
I lie to him and tell him it's all good.
”I gotta question for ya buddy”, he says. “I got this phone, and I gotta meet somebody over here by the train, and it won't download Messenger. Sometimes I can get it to take pictures, but it always has this screen when I first turn it on.”
He shows me the phone and it reads, STORAGE FULL.
In the camera app, he dismisses the warning and tries to take a picture, and the warning just pops up again and again: STORAGE FULL.
”I don't know why it's doin' that, I delete everything I put on there.”
A young mother placing her fare card on the scanner once, again and again, failing until the driver waves her in.
”Thank you, I must have left it on my desk at work”, she explains as she turns the stroller into the aisle with both hands.
A young woman scrolling past the same memes I had seen earlier in the day.
A morning when the long-haired people are all, every last one of them, the wet-haired people.
A girl wearing a green plaid shirt, with auburn hair spilled down and pooling onto her blue jean thighs.
A little boy with headphones on singing falsetto with pop songs about love and betrayal.
All of the windows are fogged opaque in the autumn downpour, and a raindrop quivers on the tip of a man's nose.
"All we got is a couple of joints, I need a bump I just had a biopsy."
Night Bus: a night of no headphones, eight passengers accepting the world unmitigated, unmediated, engaging in conversation or else watching the city.
A woman taking her time, reading every line in the classified jobs section in the alternative newspaper.
Night Bus
Ear buds
Ear buds
Headphones
Headphones
Headphones
Headphones
Naked Ear
Naked Ear
Naked Ear
Naked Ear
Naked Ear
Naked Ear (Me)
A cool dewy night, mist swirling along the street in the wake of vehicles, in the wake of walkers. The bus is nearly empty, and the air is full only of the sounds of the engine, the creaking furniture, and the air circulation system.
Three little girls speaking English and Spanish in the same breath, marrying roots, borrowing and pasting phrases, making little cuttings and planting them, watering them with their excited cadence and sponsoring with all their hearts fresh stabs and beats.
A black tank top in October, covered in cat hair.
"And I came to the realization that whenever I'd misspeak or make a mistake nobody would notice - they were only ever paying attention to themselves.
And that's how I got rid of a friend in about ten seconds."
A man in blue scrubs with gelled and parted hair, shoulder on the window frame, hunched back and head fallen, eyes closed on the way home.
Young guy, sweaty, asks two older men,
“Where's the best place to find a fight, with guys bigger than me?”
He weighed in at 250, minimum, and was spooning fast food mashed potatoes into his mouth.
”I don't know man, maybe the loop, they get down down there, somebody spit on ya and there's a fight. No weapons though, nobody should use weapons.”
Two young mothers pushing strollers, followed closely behind by an elderly couple.
Llevase una: good news from God by the bus stop bench, itself selling real estate but not in Heaven.