bus napper
dotintime
He preferred the bus. Commutes happened at the tiredest times of day, it was best to let others take the strain. Last night he’d slept badly. He had given up on pretending and had clicked on the bookmark for NPR, but “All Things Considered” had agrevated the fractures of his insomnia, so he scrolled down to the BBC and “From Our Own Correspondent”.
That show had been on World Service in the days before internet broadcasts. The stories changed, but the format had been the same forever. It was like the bus, it took him places. It was like the passengers; from Africa, or China, from the Arab world, from Asia, from the un-spellable stahns. It was moments in the lives of global journalists; random moments, sometimes mortuaries, sometimes bus-rides. He dozed and imagined the presenter’s voice, soft toned self assurance, as if Obi-Wan were a woman.
The brim of his hat protected his face from glass and hard edges. A hat and a beard made him timeless, placeless. He could be a Jewish immigrant in 1933, or a Lebanese trader making a regular visit to a customer. He could be Lenin, if he tidied up his beard, Lenin would have liked this bus. The rain spattered against the window, the engine thrummed, he teetered on the edge of slumber. Hat, beard, right now he could be a BBC correspondent with a story about sleeping on a Seattle bus.
Blog photograph copyrighted to the photographer and used with permission by utata.org. All photographs used on utata.org are stored on flickr.com and are obtained via the flickr API. Text is copyrighted to the author, Rachel Irving and is used with permission by utata.org. Please see Show and Share Your Work
