silva rerum

And I will make thee beds of roses

I schlepped it huff­ingly to the bus which, assuredly, I believed to be leav­ing that instant. Flashing my U-​pass, I cast a quick glance before sit­ting down gingerly on a cour­tesy seat. I cringe inwardly every time I have to do that – partly because I know it should be reserved for someone else and partly out of a selfish desire for a seat that I would not be required to vacate should the situ­ation arise.

And so it stood that at Cambie, I arose and snatched an open seat faster than des­per­ate house­wives pounce on gro­cery price mis-​prints. I sighed in relief and cel­eb­rated in my mind, my face not betray­ing my triumph.

Then I saw her. Wizened, grey hair all about. She sat down uncom­fort­ably, ungrace­fully, a few seats ahead of me. I stud­ied her only briefly – a def­in­itely senior, East Indian woman with sev­eral large bags. Shopping, no doubt. However unlikely at that hour. I paid no heed.

That was my mis­take, mea culpa. Seconds later, she bustles over and takes the seat next to mine, sit­ting awfully, uncom­fort­ably, pain­fully close. I feel her breath­ing, shal­low and loud, into my left ear. Her leg not only brushes against mine, it makes itself quite famil­iar with the curves and lines of my leg. I squirm uncom­fort­ably and edge closer to the win­dow. There is no escape.

I hold my breath as I feel her breath­ing come, heavy and warm, in my gen­eral vicin­ity. I con­tinue to squirm. Inexplicably, unex­plain­ably, she has con­tor­ted her body in my gen­eral dir­ec­tion so that should I make the most cas­ual, innoc­u­ous glance in her gen­eral dir­ec­tion, I meet her prob­ing eyes. I pur­pose­fully stare out the win­dow and duti­fully count the num­ber of lamp-​posts from Oakridge Mall to my house.

Passengers board and exit, board and exit, heed­less of my very vis­ceral internal struggle and the less obvi­ous external one. I take great pains, make great efforts, to hide the feel­ings from my face. All the while, my skin con­tacts hers far more than I would ever like.

I begin the ration­al­iz­a­tion phase. Perhaps she is an immig­rant, newly come to Canada, unsure of our cus­toms of per­sonal space and stan­doff­ish­ness. Perhaps this is the only human con­tact she has had in six years, aside from an aged doc­tor who prods and pokes her in uncom­fort­able, unmen­tion­able areas of her body she fails to name in English. Maybe I resemble some long-​lost son of hers, kid­napped on the streets of Mumbai, never to be reunited with his mother, doomed to some exist­ence con­sist­ing of loot­ing, pil­la­ging, drugs or some com­bin­a­tion thereupon. I puzzle myself into a tem­pest of thoughts, ever aware that my stop would soon arrive, my time would be up.

I decide to act. I stand decis­ively, sev­eral stops ahead of mine. With great pur­pose, I turn to exit. She lazily jerks her body into a dif­fer­ent con­form­a­tion. Had I been a much fat­ter per­son, I would not have exited with the fluid, liquid, cat-​like grace that I did that night. Politely, I mumbled a ‘thank you’ to this stranger with whom I had shared my air and my space as I walked to stand in front of the exit. Other pas­sen­gers glanced at me, annoyed that I would insist on being an imped­i­ment to their exits. I didn’t apologise.

My stop came. I rang the bell. The mys­ter­i­ous woman arose with no great grace and hobbled off the bus at the entrance as I quietly exit through the back of the bus. I did not and do not miss our encounter.

Some of my life stor­ies are writ­ten when mys­ter­i­ous bene­fact­ors enter and exit my life imper­cept­ibly, leav­ing behind memor­ies, les­sons, thoughts. I think back, mus­ing, remem­ber­ing, reliv­ing – re-​learning.

This story is not one of those.