Travelers

The bus moves down a highway, night surrounds us, as I look out into the passing landscape. Even at night I have a glimpse into places unknown. A boy sitting at a desk, a scene seen through open window, gives me a story to invent. He is doing his homework. He's in high school. He dreams of traveling, as I am traveling, to places he's not been.

The bus moves down the road. The window only a brief moment in the journey.

I sleep until Chicago. Dreams with the setting of the bus. Nothing unusual. Dreams about riding the bus. The dreams merge with waking moments so that I am unaware of the difference between the two.

A large room is where I wait, crowds going various directions, chairs full of travelers, a clock on a wall I use to gauge the passing of time, and I wait for my bus in silence. Thoughts passing through my mind like the passing scenery on the bus. Each thought remains for a second before the next one arrives. I consider so much yet conclusions are so few. I dream with my eyes open as these thoughts remove me from this noisy place.

Soon, very soon, I will be at a house. I will be picked up from the bus station. Not a bust station like the one in Chicago. Smaller. A storefront in a shopping centre that doubles as a small store selling soda and chips.

Now, I sit, waiting for a bus. Crowds of people. People depart. People arrive. A steady flow of humanity and no one is taking note of the differences, no one is counting the blue shirts, no one is counting the red shirts, the crowds come and go without the observation of the things that make us different when not here as travelers. Here, in this bus station and on the bus, we are all travelers.