Thoughts in Bus 062

Seated near the window in the back, he had a quiet depressed presence surrounding him. His tie was too loosened up, it almost seemed as if it was going to fall down any time the bus swerve to the right and then left...and right again. Cousin Nerie called him up at work that day, bearing all the bad news he could have imagined. It explained his early leave from work--he found out his dad had a heart attack and did not make it to the hospital. He was never close to his dad yet the news still left him dumbfounded, as if a giant slab of stone was put over his head, hurt, and worst, just suddenly proceeded into his throat. It had been hours since he took the bus 062 home although he had not gotten out and let the damning bus in circles... he asked himself: "When will it ever stop?"

Other thoughts wandered through his head "Maybe if I was a little nice to my old man, I wouldn't be here, feeling guilty. I don't know what to do. Damn it, Mario! Go home. Go see your old man..." and tears poured out, like rain in the middle of summer--profound, nevertheless, melancholic, coming from a man who was clenched to his collar, gasping for air.
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The same day, the same bus, an African-American old lady was seated in her wheelchair, up-front. She wasn't sad, she was thinking deep, her face, the map of the world. Grocery bags were assembled nicely in the floor, as she watched 'em moved gracefully with the engine. Happiness was questionable although her body language translated appreciation for the food she was about to bring to her six grandchildren. She found them, all diversed in their own means, under the bridge near her house one day, asking for some change. Out of pity but mostly annoyance, she decided to welcome them in to her humble house of crumbling walls and pictures of family she barely see twice a year. After 20 minutes of oblivion, she snapped out of her thoughts:

"What am I going to do with these kids? I am not getting younger or richer. I just hope they will learn how to own up to responsibilities soon. I am really counting on Alliyah but she's busting up so much with that loser boyfriend of hers..."

and realized that it was already her stop.
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"Ninguna suerte hoy. No quiero seguir viviendo como este. Ellos la gente blanca sigue tratándome como la suciedad. Sólo porque no digo su lengua, esto no significa que soy menos más elegante. Deseé que yo no debiera haber tomado mis posibilidades y sólo haberme quedado en México donde, aunque el salario mínimo yo ganara no alimentó mi familia correctamente, éramos todavía felices. A diferencia de aquí ... vida es lo peor. Debo seguir luchando...Dios mio!" Juanito's thoughts reverberated within. In the same bus, 062, he sat peacefully in the center, his legs moved back and fort, as if he could not wait to get off and be with his wife who was actually prepping some delicious carne asada at home. She had a 5 dollar raised from taking care of old people in a retirement home and gotten a big tip from one of the families who came visited that day.

Juanito on the other hand, was still puzzled how to get another racket, while he thought of asking one of his compadres if he could get a job in the Mexican restaurant he currently works at. He just wanted to have a decent job before career day at his son's school. The pressure had been bothering him a lot because, like any parent, he just want his kids to have a better life--better than what he was having. Hopefully, he thought, better than he'll ever imagined.
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Another person, seated near Juanito, looked too peaceful, as if he had no worries in the world. Ryan looked straight ahead, indifferent about everything that surrounded him; not the wailing in the back, anyway nor the noise outside. Deep down however, he was full of anguished. If he could have, he would have...ran out in the back and suffocated the wailing man in the back or robbed every passenger of bus 062. Nothing compared to a 23-yr old something guy who had emotions which ran deeper than the ocean. Stupidly, he decided to quit his job because of a tiny misunderstanding with one of the female managers on his "ex" company. Stupid perhaps since he had not had another job,

"How am I gonn pay for my bills!? Fuck..Fuck...Fuck... Stupid bitch! ..."

was all he could think of--all the cussed words seemed to apease his anguished and calmed him down for just a second. Although afterwards, he was back to an internal battle number 95672. If only he still had his xbox to keep him company, to ease the pain and frustration that's building inside and most definitely the hatred he had towards himself. He believed it's the closest he could get into his ideal reality: gang bangers, grand theft autos, and hello, HALO!
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A young couple, seated in the 4th sit near the front looked like a happy ending to a movie. The girl's head on the guy's broad shoulder, the guy's arm around her. Little smirks graced their beautiful faces; young love did not quiet look so promising as theirs. Dreamy sighs were exchanged back and fort and the disturbing sounds that surrounded them sounded like hawaiian lullabies to their grungy ears. Not a single word was said yet it seemed as if they understood each other with or without. The silence were meant to cause more hormonal love; they were attached to each other like siamese twins, cats, mind you. Thoughts were hidden behind amourous taspestries and only introduced by their inner selves, guilty, and deep inside more confused...scared?

The guy said "I hoped she doesn't find out about Kendra. I really...uuh...what's the word? Like? Love? ..I care for her."

The girl said "I am scared to feel it; because even if im not trying to, it is still too powerful...the feelings. I do not want to get hurt in the end. Maybe...hopefully...he doesn't hurt me. I am scared. Does he really like me?"

If only minds can talk out loud. If only, babe.
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Bus 062 did not run out of personalities that day. Another being, a girl with average hair that stuck out, sat behind the two lovers. She was smiling like a psychological muse, and she knew it too. A list of thoughts loomed in her head but the one thing that was memorable was the thoughts of food.

"I am hungry now... I want some Thai... to thai or not to thai? That is the question..."


We all have our different stories and as i have spent a good amount of my time riding the Orange Line, I have encountered people that I created my first impressions of. I could go on and on with this but I won't bore you any further. We're special, no doubt, but most of us, do end up worrying about our problems...we think about them, a lot actually and that's where "being special" draw the line. That is where we are not-so different from the others. We have our own stories but they're all the same stories under the categories of sadness, caring, hatred, love and sometimes just as basic as thinking about what kind of food to eat. WE THINK everywhere, even in a bus 062. I've just thought. Enjoy!

1. Translation: No luck today. I do not want to keep living like this. Them white people keep treating me like dirt. Just because I do not speak their language, it doesn't mean I am less smarter. I wished I should have not taken my chances and just stayed in Mexico where, although the minimum wage I earned did not feed my family properly, we were still happy. Unlike here... life is worst. I must keep fighting...

Labels: FICTION

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Reporting for Duty

Most situations in my life have fallen under "better" category but some are still unbearable, inhabiting the one place I wish more peaceful and uncluttered. It has been more than three months since I wrote a personal entry that does not involve flowery language and migraine-inducing stories. I guess I have gotten carried away by the ups and downs of my own roller coaster ride that lasted about sometime that I neglected my usual vents, raves, and rants. Like how a friend of mine is now getting carried away by a woman who, I think, he does not even want to get steady with. If you see a similarity, let me know as I only added that to emphasize that "getting carried away" will never be a good thing--not for me, anyway.

Somewhere, beyond the silence that stricken my room and mind, I know all the entries presented here are based on my personal experiences. Yet I do missed being human and real sometimes; I have missed translating my feelings down to words and making my few readers wonder what I am talking about (now). My past is quiet exciting, intimidating and questionable. But the past is the past and most days, when I have the urge to practice my will to write, I feel like I need to press everything outside of my mind and put it all here instead of talking in the phone for hours at a time (until midnight).

Well, so here I am tonight, as I sit here getting lost into my own pool of self-doubt and confusement--like I have been all this years, holler! Nothing has changed. I still feel nostalgic about the people gone past my life, walked away, who didn't even said goodbye; I still missed all the important things in life because all I want to see is of non-importance; and most especially, I am still the same person who doesn't know who she is and tries to discover where she might be now.

Although my feelings are the same, my life is in constant motion. Day by day, I realized that walking out and moving on in a "relationship" is a good thing (although I have yet to completely accept it whole-heartedly). I miss many things and although I still feel the need to go back in time or have more millionth other chances, I can only be patient now. I know myself will come around someday and such adversity will only make me stronger and a better person.

I need this time of non-progression to understand and forgive the person that I had become. Although I am face with the consequences of love and heartbroken (for I face different phases of hatred towards men and my passions gone somewhere, taking coffee breaks), it is safe to say I will have my better days. I've wanted everything overnight but this...peace will not come anytime soon as I do need to face the ghosts that haunt me down at 11:11 in the morning first before anything else. I need this to learn how to let go and wait for the storm to ease down.

And so, I have officially enrolled myself to the School of Life. While I hated high school with angst and passionate distaste, I cannot say or whine much, about this.

It was bound to happen and if it wasn't, then it would have not had happened in the first place. Wish me luck on finding who I TRULY am (because I cant be doing it when im 25 and not getting any younger) and convincing my passions (for photography, art, culinary and writing) that I am calm, cool and collective now. Or so I hope.

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"Oh Sunrise..."

People pass by him as if he's a big slump of dirt glued in the wall of gleaming marble in the 4^th street building. Ironically, he is used to it—from passers by who look down and shake their heads upon smelling his stench and eventually avoid as if he is the twin of Frankenstein. Hopelessness still lingers through however, from head to toe and each core of his being. For him, life was not always misery and hunger. No, sir. He had dreams like you and I, maybe even farther than the stars. Yet, goodbye came too quickly as hello said goodbye effortlessly, which leaves where he is now, sitting outside in the middle of winter, frozen like Popsicles and almost freezer burnt like a slab of meat.

Owed his success to his parents, Mike decided to gamble his luck and invested for Urban Shoes. It was some good luck at first since after two, fruitful years being employed at the Company, he met what recalled to be “the one”. Like most marriages in this vast country of love and infidelity, their relationship seemed to be deem forever. After a year and a half of tender love and inexplainable highs, they already have three beautiful children who binded them even stronger than before. Good luck became his reality, where life became the vision he had in mind all along: glimmering like the Bay during a sunny day. He dreamt of taking over the Company someday, sending his children to prestigious colleges abroad while growing old gracefully with his loved ones and money by his side.

But such good luck took its toll for the worst, however. The company failed to met the quota for numerous deadlines and concluded to be fallible, in the end bankrupt, each single dollar was transferred to the bank. His dreams vanished as fast as the shutter of a disposable camera while his family, long gone, abandoned him with the gathered resources through out the years. It was not love that binded them; it was the money that kept them a family yet broken them apart. They savagely withdraw the savings, all 10,000,000,000 dollars of it and fled away to the shores of Mexico. “Worthless man” were the last words from the people who failed to be his support group.

He also lost his parents that year, about 10 years ago or so today. Plane 0567 is reported to suffer from internal machinery troubles and crashed amongst coconut trees and bushes in the blue island of Antigua.

His heart erupted and excreted vile feelings of total depression and madness, upon hearing the second round of bad news. One by one, all the purposes of his life came collapsing down, possibly worst than 7/11, or so he felt—as uniquely as his life experiences can be. For months, he hunkered in the living room sofa, nulling over the strong taste of wine in his tongue. Getting help, he believed, was not the answer but the improbable beginning of even more heartaches. He drank as if it relieved the pain—it only made it worst; he usually found himself crying in the morning yet intoxication continued until one day he just found himself outside, seated in the cold asphalt in 4^th street.

Mike did not entertain the idea of remembering how he got there looking as bad as he smells—worst than a dead, decaying crow in the side road. He knows he is use to the stares, to people pitying him yet not do anything about it, none at all, just warm voices who whisper “Awwww...” while they pass by. His day to day battle with the police also prevailed as they yell at him to “...go do something with (his) life or die painfully in jail”. Jail, he guessed was better than the sidewalk although they never took him in and lock him up. Damn police! They leave him there, rotting away like the winter trees: fragile, cold, and wilting away waiting for a tinge of light to come rescue him.

One, muggy, November morning along with the hustle and bustle that the city usually brings during this time of day, he woke up as always, with the blurry silhouettes of businessmen in their fancy coats and fatigued looks. Out of nowhere, he reached for his pockets like it could talk and told him to do so, when he found a 20 dollar bill inside and a tiny pill with a sun engraved to it. He concluded it must be some sort of children's vitamin or just plain candy. He squatted there happy and abruptly, he took the yellow pill in and sighed in “sunrise...” in which could be seen peeking through tiny spaces between buildings and hugging through atop smaller ones.

“Eeeeehh!!” he shouted in disgust upon tasting the pill as unconsciously, he swallowed it quickly, ruthlessly...disgusted. “So much for a fucking fantastic morning...” he said under his breathe. Twenty dollars clasped on his left hand, he started walking to the left, towards the big arch sign that says McFerrils, a cheap counterpart of the famous joint. Inside, he could smell the aroma of caffeine, the smell of baked biscuits, and frying sausages, a very different sight as he had not had a “good” breakfast since an old lady gave her 5 dollars and 2 cents...about 4 months ago.

"May I have some coffee...and.." he was interrupted by the person behind the counter.

"What size would you like sir?" she asked politely, unfortunately an obvious insincere one.

"The biggest one you have! Today, I'll have a feast like a king!" he said loudly, it scared Jona as stated on her badge.

"...Hold on, I'm not done. Let me also have a breakfast burrito, biscuits with bacon...uuuh apple pie...a cheeseburger and a chicken wrap..." he continued and stopped her from getting his coffee.

While enjoying his "feast" at a table near the window, overlooking the children's play area, his perspective changed drastically from feeling happy to even happier. All the meals he ordered had turned into gourmet meals--the ones you can order in some expensive restaurant by someone famous like Wolfgang Puck. The aroma was almost bearable for him and everything seemed more brighter & livelier...and were the McFerrils employers dancing to...Gold Diggers by Kanye West? He seemed more profoundly friendly to the other customers who just looked him with disgust when he approached them. While normally, he would feel worst than a stray dog when people ignore him, at that time, he never felt more confident in his life, he ignored the banters, took his food outside and danced his way to 4th.

Surprising, he did not huff by the sight of businessmen hoarded, walking in unison talking on their cellphones, yelling at god knows who and what about. It usually upsets him when he realizes that he could have been one of them too but that day was different. He offered them food as if they've been eating McFerrils everyday of their lives. The skylines towered over him as if they were god-given nature while the trees looked even prettier although its the middle of winter. His "home" which sits outside the noted "fancy" building looked like a big ball of warmth--just like what he used to have. "Life is not that bad...its fantastic!" he screamed on top of his lungs...in his head.

His perception became worst when night time fell. Christmas, that's how he called it that night all the lights twinkled, shined above his light head. He didn't mind the numbing, cold wind...he was just, HAPPY.

Until after sometime that everything wore off and he started yearning for the...SUNRISE. He realized that he was back to reality and self-control, self unworthiness...and even more so, misery and pain.

Labels: FICTION, reality, short story, XTC

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To the one I never had,

I would do anything to relive the past. Absolutely, I would go through it from the beginning and feel my heartbeat go a hundred miles an hour. The joy I felt that New Year's Eve and my trembling body out of pain when you've spoken your peace, I had not forgotten all as it still remains in the deepest core of my being. Like a magician, I have tried tricking myself to believe that you were nothing but a presence in my intricate dreams. To my dismay, I can only be able to deceit my concious during my sleep. As sharp as the evidence the photographs provide me, my memory, even though now sits in the bottom of my mind, is of no comparison. I can still depict so vividly the lines in your face, the swirly patterns of your hair, and the soft hands that left invisible marks in my hand. No one can see the mark but I felt seep in through my skin and taken my hand hostage of your touch forever. It is not only your carnal appearance that I remember when I am left alone musing during my day, however. Your smile...the way you say "Stop it!" when I tease you and when you put your arms around me and tell me promising things--all of these still haunt me down. A familiar feeling reoccur midst many of the songs that use to remind me of you. I often turn off the radio not because I do not want to be reminded but because its painful to know it is not possible to relive any of it, again.

When you have finally spoken the verdict to our hopeless situation, I felt betrayed--of you and myself. I have secretly acquired high hopes for the two of us and although, not as sudden as it would have been, I thought things would have been directed to the right instead of the left. My heart throbbed not out of delight anymore but earth shattering annoyance. I've wanted to slap your indifferent disposition and paste a sad smile and paper tear drops to your face. Of course, I could not...I did not. Regardless how my inner bitch was surfacing, I was still weaked to my knees, spine, jellied like always, secretly hoping that someday we will be meant for each other. Unconciously, I've waited for things to turn out the way they should have been. Yet my concious demonstrated a different persona, my super alter-ego and the yearnings of a wet, cold soul wanting to be accepted by you, overnight.

And so here I am, I sit here with the sound of the faucet dripping in the background (like the slurs of the television when disconnected), hopelessly reaching for the past: the good along with the not-so-good. I shake my head along with the mocking laughter I've always heard from you the course of our "relationship" because we all know the past has moved away with you, 60 miles from here, where is that?

Societal, mainstream views tell me its not fair (and stupidity is not charming) I still yearn for the being I met months ago. You've moved on (from what I've heard), you even move out and away yet I want to tell you I still care whether you eat or not, whether if you have heater/airconditioner in your new place...whether if everything is alright.

Although now, the past is the past, I thought you should know my feelings were true for you. Its not me babe, its all on you.



Photo Credit: Nostalgic Photography (moi).

Labels: "love", feelings, FICTION/non, heartbreak

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