The door slammed shut, the floor lights dark, and the engine on the bus began the slow grind out of the small rural town in Eastern Oregon. The interior landscape was a scattered heap, with bodies, legs, arms, and heads all cramped into positions and feigning sleep, creating the illusion that there were no more available seats. So he stood in the dark for awhile.
This traveling capsule contained a collective smell that had been fermenting since it left Seattle, and would not clear till Chicago. Each of the 54 seats contained an individual, a life. But days and nights on the road had merged the personal space of each into this mixture of humanity, with only the minds, thoughts, and feelings of each person separating them from the group. If you could look past all the obvious, this was like a screen play waiting to be noticed, or not. For still, halfway to Boise, and he had no seat.
“There’s room for you here,” her tired broken voice offered. So he sat. Then listened. The old woman had much to say now that the only obstacle to her expression; an overly dominant husband, had passed on, leaving her with a lifetime of personal exploration to sift 
through. “Never had the time or the inclination to think much before,” She whispered, “Fred did most of that for me, since I was sixteen.”
through. “Never had the time or the inclination to think much before,” She whispered, “Fred did most of that for me, since I was sixteen.”
The thing about buses is that everyone actually pays attention to what’s going on around them. There is a sense of community that develops, a trust, once people see your face enough at the stops. Everyone turns off their life for a few days and becomes a group. When members of the group finally get off in or near their town, there is a loss. People think about that individual for a few minutes, about their life here in northern Utah say, and then turn away and forget about them, and feign asleep, as some newbie’s enter the bus, looking for a seat.
