Bus Ride to Work

This is a short story I wrote a while ago which I would love some feedback on.

It’s a typical Tuesday morning as you’re getting on the bus to go into work. Wait, maybe it’s a Wednesday morning. The days all seem to blend together. The people aboard all seem faceless yet very similar. 

First there’s the woman talking on the phone. She speaks so loudly she may as well just be yelling to her friend across town. Across from her is a man with his daughter in a carriage playing with her doll. She drops it often. Picking up the doll is her brother, a few years older. He has a dinky car to play with, that he drives it along the windowsill as if it’s the road to where he’s going. 

Across from you is a teenaged couple, so wrapped up in themselves and each other it’s a wonder they even notice where they are or where they’re going. The girl has her hand held possessively on her boyfriend’s, glaring at everybody, daring them to interfere with her time with her man. She focuses her glare upon three other girls around her age, talking together. They don’t notice her at all. They’re too busy gossiping about that cute boy at school, or how mean their teacher was to assign so much homework. Maybe they’re too busy calling their peers immature and obnoxious to notice that this is everyone’s opinion of them as well. Everybody also probably assumes that the two jocks sitting in the back laughing about how their friend did something stupid and dangerous, yet apparently hilarious as well. They didn’t notice the couple either. They noticed the girls though. Perhaps they know each other. Perhaps they’d like to. You’d never know though because each and every one of them is too busy wrapped up in their conversations and their mobile phones to be able to approach one another for a talk. Nor will they approach the girl sitting near them, trying to do her makeup quickly each time the bus stops. They’re unwilling to have a decent amount of interpersonal communication with a stranger. 

However, if you asked these teenagers they’d just say they didn’t want to talk. They’d claim that they’re very social, unlike the man who just got on with a cat carrier. They’d say he’s weird and smelly. Maybe he’s just lonely. Who’d know? He never speaks to anybody besides his cat. He gives off a strange vibe that encourages others to keep away. His vibe is not unlike that of the tall man who never sits, regardless of seat availability. This man just stands near the middle of the bus, staring around at each person in turn. He never speaks, and never seems to recognize anybody. He just watches, and has to be careful not to fall because the bus driver keeps hitting the brakes for stops at the last minute, causing the whole bus to jerk. This is inconvenient for everybody on board, particularly the man sitting with a coffee reading the newspaper so intently you wonder what could possibly be so interesting about a sports column. Maybe he’s just really passionate about sports, just as passionate as the hippie man who’s playing his music so loud everybody in the vicinity can hear it perfectly. Fortunately the chair next to him is empty, so nobody has to suffer through his music too much.

 Unfortunately, the only reason it is empty is due to the man who insists on standing in front of the chair rather than have a seat. He blocks the way for anybody else who may feel like taking a rest for the ride, and he too is listening to music and gazing out the window, so he has no way of knowing if somebody wishes to have the seat. Why doesn’t he sit? Or better yet, why doesn’t he stand somewhere more convenient? Perhaps he doesn’t want to stand too close to the two elderly people up front. The woman is lost. She doesn’t know where her stop is, or even which stop is best to get off at. She asks the man, who is always ready to have a boring and meaningless conversation with anybody unlucky enough to be drawn into speaking to him. They both continue to talk to everybody’s dismay. Why don’t they sit next to each other to talk? Must they sit across the aisle and three seats over from each other? Is it necessary to disrupt everybody with their talk? It must be, because there they are every day, with different faces but always the same presence. 

Each day on your way to work, you see these same presences with you. You then begin to wonder, which presence are you? Are you the boy studying the whole time? The girl reading a book? That person who looks around often but avoids eye contact? Does anybody really care who you are, or are you just another person stuck on the bus on your way to work, noticed for your presence, but not your originality?

Author's Note

Ignore grammar problems please.
How is content?

Reviews

[Leo Bojalil]

You gave a smile on my face!!..and that´s something I like when reading, to be able to capture the right feeling of the story and also it helps to feel identified by your story, on the side note i'm always also teh observer at the Bus or the Metro. I've always create stories for the people I see on the street or the transport just as you described in here. Same faces everyday going to work and getting back home, those questions of who they are, what they are reading, and specially you are also being observed and that question of who you are in this miscellaneous soup of personality and fictional characters that one creates each day until you no longer sees them or when u broke conversation with someone and the fantasy goes away.

Nice idea and could be expanded into a series of stories or some sort, maybe a fictional world with fictional stories and characters from the public transport....could be great.

[Rocksie]

Wow, thanks!
I never really considered expanding it. I actually recently started trying to capture the essence of people I see in writing. Like, if I see someone on the bus I like to imagine how their day is going, what struggles they may be facing, etc. I wasn't really planning on sharing any of it though. It was more of a journal idea.
Thanks for the review though!
PS sorry for late reply, I haven't been on in a while

[Bern_Bright]

I feel like this needs paragraphs because it felt like I was reading while holding me breath. Visually it just makes for happy eyes to know where something begins and ends.

Content wise - this person is an observer listing the the personalities he see's like a game of " I spy" , is he just spamming us with running commentary or does he have an opinion? Does he/she feel like an outsider? Is he numb, dark, a philosopher, is he hacking their brains by observing their behaviour, is he disgusted? I feel like he's not saying anything real.

I think you're heading in the right direction though.

Ps: Please feel free to review my work! Be brutal!