a pause before death
He smelled nothing but sweat and nicotine all trapped under his navy blue shirt. He was almost running against the crowd of passengers only to get a vacant seat in the bus. His bags were banging into people’s knees and one passenger got real mad that she yelled angrily at his face. But he could not read the words from her lips that were moving so fast under the beat of the slow rock music of an Eagles song from the bus speakers. But he was sure the woman was cursing him. He knew women to be swearing all the time, just like his own mother and a girl from the past who cursed him real bad when she was awfully drunk back in the old days. He opened the window. He could not help but look at the guy with a semi indie kid styled hair one seat away from him in the left, staring fixedly at a magazine photograph of a sexy woman in her lingerie. Another passenger entered the bus, crashing her luggage against the seats and sweating all over her low necked cotton blouse. The indie guy in front of her, with a few glances at her breasts through her neckline, made a few grins. She was beautiful as he was watching her as she walked towards him. “Excuse me”, she said. “Hi, can I sit here?” She was smiling. “Sure.” He got his other things and hastily put them below his right side. She was beautiful alright, one of those faces that could have been fucked too many times but would still try to fool others by making herself look like she has never been into tongue to tongue kissing, half sex, wild sex or blowjobs all her life. The woman was busy tapping the keypad of her cellphone while he was pretending to look at the same indie guy to his left when in fact, he was trying to glance at her. He remembered his wife, he felt sorry foe her. They could have spent more time together, it was only three weeks when they got married. But he had to work away from home. “You know, every first week of June, it’s always like this in the bus, most of the passengers are college students, they are all catching the trip for their first day of class.” He was now looking to the other passengers in front of them. It was a good moment for a nice and smooth conversation. One oldie was shouting minutes ago to turn off the radio. Good thing it was turned off. “Yeah, its bullshit you know. I could have taken the other first trips. I’m not really used to traveling this late. “She smirked and then smiled. He could not say any word anymore. She was looking again at her phone, texting. Something in her reminded him of someone from the past. The way she pouted her lips while she was texting made him sweat for the second time for the past few minutes. He was shaking inside. The woman looked at him again. She was half smiling, both eyes freezing in that hot Sunday late afternoon.
