silva rerum

And risk it on one turn of pitch-​and-​toss

I scanned the inter­sec­tion nervously – left, right, left again – before mak­ing a mad dash across the street. I felt like a dare­devil (neces­sar­ily so). I had defeated the fates and man­aged to way­lay my bus with an expertly timed cross­ing sig­nal change.

Triumphant, I reached into my back pocket to ready my U-​pass. Yet Lo! My wal­let was not there! What was I to do‽ I resigned myself to hav­ing to trudge the long five-​minute trek home to retrieve my wal­let and the U-​pass inside.

“What’s wrong?”

I looked up. A middle-​aged Asian woman smiled at me.

“I’ve for­got­ten my wallet.”

I must have drawled.

“Oh? Is that it? Here, you take this.”

She proffered the faresaver in her hand, retail value $2.50. Uncertain, I gingerly reached out a hand. She placed it in my palm.

“You’re a stu­dent. It’s okay.”

By now, the bus has arrived and so she hops on first. She takes a few seconds longer than she nor­mally would have, as she reached into her pocket to tear out her last faresaver from the pack.

I mumble it over and over again, not quite cer­tain how to explain my grat­it­ude to a stranger that I would prob­ably never get the chance to repay.

“Thank you. Thank you so much.”

She smiles. I smile. She sits down. I find a seat a little fur­ther behind, rest my head on the win­dow and close my eyes.

No one else on the bus knows our little secret except me and her. And there’s magic in that.