The Bus and The Books

There is a deep ache in my heart, for it sings verses of a poem I cannot understand. I wish I could explain this rhythm to you. It’s like the fog that shelters a dangerous bloodhound ready to tear its victim to shreds. When I close my eyes in the darkness of the night, I hear this deep ache screech out my name. And it hurts, but I don’t know how to live without this melody of tragic verses. What if I am an incomplete poem? What happens once the poem ends? Who am I if not misery? I don’t think I want to know.

I am already used to being empty now.

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When summer began, I excited myself with a new part-time job at a coffee shop as a barista. I don’t know why I did it, given that I am pursuing literature at the University. I guess the promise of financial independence enticed me into the job, and it was not a decision I regretted. The café was everything I wanted it to be.

I still remember the misty mornings when I walked in through the heavy, oaky doors and was pounded on by the fragrant aroma of fresh coffee beans wiggling through the air like cozy, warm, invisible hugs. Before the first customers poured in, I would take a cup of coffee for myself and hurry over to the nearest window for five minutes of solitude. Since the café was on top of a hill, it overlooked the rest of the city. There was something special watching the city slowly wake up – the sound of a distant freighter train whistled in through the window; the wind whispered tales, and the trees rustled in response; the sun graced its warmth upon the verdant hill; the sunflowers yawned themselves awake. It was perfect.

I quickly fell in love with the café within the first week, and my excitement was further enhanced by the presence of an excellent acquaintance in Rebecca. Have you ever met someone who is everything you needed them to be? They are not perfect, but they are confident in being themselves. Rebecca was that person. She had the same interests as me, and when the café was less busy, we would chatter on and on about everything from sharing remorse for the sullen piece of chicken floating in the soup in my lunchbox to delving into how the Animal Farm is an allegory for the Bolshevik revolution.

I have always found conversation difficult. With so many thoughts and few words to choose from, my words often prance around into incoherent, jumbled grunts. With Rebecca, my words were as effortlessly alert as ever. And even when there were no words between us, we found comfort in the silence we held together. There was no romance. There was no love. There was no attraction. It was just two people understanding each other. And that meant everything to me.

We both loved art. It was a different experience to meet someone who shared the same passion towards art as I did. Whenever I discuss art with my peers, I hear them dismissing it as baseless. But art is a form of expression that is more than just surrealist drawings of people and places. Art can be anything from a book about animals on a farm to a movie about clowns abducting children. Art can even be science because isn’t math a language of its own? Even though the type of art we choose to engage with might be different, each one of us falls in love with some kind of art. Rebecca and I both loved art in the form of literature.

As someone who finds communicating verbally with others difficult and cumbersome, I use art to express and control my emotions. I do this best through writing on my blog, reading books, or watching movies and television shows. It is absolutely mind-boggling to me that we as humans can even be conscious at all, so how does it make any sense to stare at pieces of paper or a giant screen for hours and fall in love with it? And yet, we still do engage with art. I still engage with art! For Rebecca, art was beautiful because it was where she went to when she wanted to escape. She told me about how after her last break-up, she fled to Barnes and Noble to read poetry and self-help books. She told me about how when she was angry at her roommate for not washing his dishes on time, she watched an action movie.

Befittingly then, on Friday of my sixth week at work, we decided to share our reading preferences with each other. Rebecca recommended three books: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Sweet Bean Paste by Tetsuya Akikawa and Flowers for Algernon by Keyes. In turn, I suggested three books to Rebecca: One Hundred Years of Solitude by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams and The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. Rebecca and I parted with a promise to see each other the following Monday. We were excited to share our thoughts about the books we had read. I spent all weekend consuming those books with ravenous ecstasy. But then came Monday.

I had been laid off. As a barista. From a coffee shop. The manager said that it had something to do with my immigration status and not being allowed to work off campus. I didn't bother listening. I haven’t gone back to the coffee shop since then. How could I? It seemed too shameful. I never saw Rebecca again, and I never got to tell her how much I loved the three books. How much I was beginning to love her presence in my life.

I have many regrets, but none more than the goodbyes that never were, like the one with Rebecca. I regret the goodbyes that are over before you realize it. And for some reason, they keep happening. Again and Again. For some reason, I meet people for a short period, and I deeply connect with them. They all fill this cavity inside me with the sand of their presence, and then the cavity suddenly ‘bonjours’ itself into a massive crater. When I was sixteen, I promised my childhood best friend that we would meet again next year in the summer of 2018. Still, when the next summer came, we couldn’t have been more different, and I soon realized that the person I saw before me wasn’t the one I had promised to meet. When I was seventeen, I promised my partner of that time that I would keep in touch as I moved to the US. I failed to do that. When I was eighteen, it dawned upon me that everyone I cared for had slowly drifted apart. I still had friends, yet I had never felt so lonely. I had never felt so…empty.

Everyone I meet now is like a vessel for this buzzing, static human-shaped noise. I find myself struggling to understand people. Everything around me changes so quickly that I have no one who truly understands me. I am like an empty husk observing life blossoming around me.

Where do I find my place of permanence? Where do I go when I want to enjoy the mundane and the routine? When I want to view the same corner of the world again and again. When I want to see the same people again and again. When I want to smell the same smells again and again. When I want to feel the same. Again and again.

Oddly enough, I find this place of permanence to be the Bus.

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I don’t feel like myself around people anymore. There is a reason the music in my earphones soar as high as they do. I want to drown the world out because, most of the time, it is too much to handle. Somehow, I feel that the world is not ready for me to be who I want to be. I don't know how to explain it, but it feels like the world is an angry swarm of static buzzes, hovering high above me like a devil's spirit summoned straight out of a witch's boiling cauldron. Their words are drowning me out.

Don’t cry. Don’t laugh too hard. Don’t be too stern. Don’t be too happy. Be polite. Be kind. Be yourself. Smile. You are trying too hard to fit in. You will never fit in. There’s something wrong with you. You just want attention. Run away. You have toomany tattoos. You look sohappy. Are yousure you aresad? Justtrytobeyourselfbecausethereisnothingwrongwithyou. Everythingwillbefineif youstopbeingsopretentious.

Of course, I know that no one out there in the real world is constantly judging me for who I am. People are too busy to give a damn about me. I know that no one is out to get me. But I don't feel like it. I know what I am supposed to feel, but I don't know how to feel it. Everyone around me is constantly telling me to be myself, but that's the problem! I don't know how to be myself. I am different when I am with my friends. I am different when I am with my family. I am different when I am with strangers. There are so many versions of me. Which one am I supposed to be?

When I am on the Bus, I am free to be whoever I want to be. The Bus is unique because I am not the only person who is riding alone on it. Every passenger on the Bus is lonely (or at least alone) in their own way, and their behaviour tells me everything I want to know about them. Something as simple as hiding behind your phone screen or watching the world outside – that’s enough to understand who people are when they are alone. When they are like me. It's the only time I seem to understand people.

I also enjoy watching the world outside when I am on the Bus. It just lets me unwind and enjoy the moment. There is a safe distance between me and the world outside that allows me to actually appreciate how beautiful it can actually be.

Like everything, though, the Bus is not perfect. Not many people use this opportunity to connect. Often, I watch people thump their bags onto the seat next to them. People don’t like to talk to each other, and little bits of making conversation can seem awkward. I am not anyone special, so I, too, block the seat next to mine, but somewhere deep down, something is telling me that I shouldn’t. Maybe, the next time a stranger walks next to my seat, I should say ‘Hello’ and move that bag to make space.

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I have begun taking a summer class at the University. The course is about analyzing the contest against prejudice through literature. It is an exciting class where we are free to choose our readings, and at the end of the semester, we present our findings as a research paper. Every day, we also discuss a shared reading (something we have all read) with our peers in short discussion groups. It is like a book club.

Today, the discussion group that I am a part of chose to discuss Slaughterhouse-Five by Kurt Vonnegut. While I adore the book, I could hardly grasp what the book had to say about prejudice. Yet, the others in my discussion group seemed so quick and shark with their responses that I wondered whether I was an idiot not to have read The Slaughterhouse Five as they did. Is there a right way to read books?

On my ride home, however, I saw someone special on the Bus today. This someone was reading a book and not just any book. They were reading one of my favorite books, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy – the same one I had recommended to Rebecca. I wanted to move over and sit next to them. I wanted to talk about the book with them. I wanted to let them know about the tattoo on my right thigh that had a famous quote from the book inscribed. But I didn’t do any of it.

I was born into a nation known for romcoms, fairytales. Isn’t this how people meet in those fairytales? Yet, my life is not a fairytale; I remind myself. Even if I want my life to be a fairytale, all that it will ever be is a lie— no need for me to wash my loneliness upon strangers.

One of my friends recently wrote and illustrated a storybook for one of their classes, and it is lovely. However, there is something in their book that I can’t entirely agree with. They claim that we are a way for the Universe to experience itself. For a long time, I, too, believed that we were the Universe’s limbs and the Universe experienced itself through us. It is a story I have used in most of my admission essays, conversations, and introductions. But I don’t actually believe in it. I don’t think the Universe can feel itself through us. Or, through me. How can the Universe feel itself through me when I cannot feel myself through me?

So, what’s the point of existence? Why do we exist? Why do I exist? I do not think there’s a point to us. And that is not bad! Not bad at all! The Universe goes on and on; it is infinite. Can you imagine how lonely that must make the Universe feel? Sure, the Universe has friends in the form of empty space, light, gigantic black holes, and breathtaking stuff we don’t even know exists.

Nevertheless, the Universe is lonely. I justify my existence through the Universe’s loneliness! The Universe manifests its loneliness through simply existing. Everything around us is lonely. Perhaps, we are meant to be lonely too.

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Today, I got my copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy to read on the Bus. I know it seems pathetic, but I only wanted to strike up a conversation. When they boarded the Bus, I noticed they had another book with them: One Hundred Years of Solitude. A wave of delightful surprise took me aback, and I couldn’t help but smile like a maniac. Whoever this person was, they had a similar taste in books as me!

Rationality evaporated from my body, and I began minting plans to carry my entire bookshelf with me on the Bus. Back home, we used to have vendors board our trains and flippantly try to sell us every possible commodity known to humankind. I saw myself doing that to this person on the Bus. The Bus was my place of permeance, and I used to love it for being mundane, but now I was excited by something new. Or maybe, I was just being pathetic. Probably the latter.

Anyhow, the idea of having possibly met someone who I could connect with invigorated me to be extra active in my class discussion today. We chose to talk about Chronicles of Death Foretold by Gabriel Garcia Marquez and how the narrative highlights and condemns the situation that women were unfairly subjugated to during that time period. I particularly brought up points about Marquez’s decision to describe the local brothel in the book as he did. His descriptions of the brothel made it sound so beautiful that it seemed like an elegant, domicile house. It was a weird choice that I think I have never understood. We had a healthy discussion about it. For once, I felt people appreciate my ideas.

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I left the seat next to me empty and saw them board the Bus again. They still had One Hundred Years of Solitude held within their grasp. I saw a bookmark near the end, indicating they were very close to finishing the book. What new book would they bring with them tomorrow?

I was so excited daydreaming about what book they would get tomorrow that I almost did not itch in discomfort during my group discussion when we discussed Earthlings by Sayuka Murata. I had read Earthlings a long time ago and had never liked it. Was it a parody? Was it a horror? The book seemed beyond my comprehension.

"You don't have to like a book to appreciate its significance," Felippa, one of my group discussion members, said. "Prose and poetry are not so different, you know? Most often, it is not about what they want to say, but about how they want to say it. They are about feelings! How did Earthlings make you feel?"

"Angry and disgusting," I said, nodding amusingly.

"And it was supposed to make you feel that way because the book's significance is to challenge authority and establishment, even those that the reader might have," Felippa said. "You expect the main characters to behave in a certain way, so the book challenges your beliefs in an offensively humorous way."

"So the book is a comedy!"

"Yes, but it is also a stand against society and passive action."

"Passive action?"

"Well, I think the author is suggesting a stand against passive action. Obviously, it doesn't have to be anything as atrocious as what the characters in the book do. But in their own way, the author is really suggesting to not let the adversity of the world affect the way you behave. If you stand passively and do nothing, you end up with cannibals like the main character. The world is cruel! What are you going to do about it? Will you join the world in its cruelty, or will you define your own way? That's the point of the book!"

"Ridiculous," I laughed. But when I was taking the Bus back home, something Felippa said stuck with me. The world is cruel! What are you going to do about it?

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They didn’t show up today.

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It has been three weeks, and they haven’t shown up.

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Maybe they will never show up again. Was I too passive in my pursuit of connection? Hadn’t I known the first time I saw them that I was projecting my loneliness onto this person, expecting them to fill the void in my life? How selfish! Had I ever taken the initiative to know this person truly?

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The person on the Bus did not show up. They haven't for five weeks now. It does not matter anymore because today, during the group discussion, I finally realized something. I had taken my seat next to Felippa. The group discussion was yet to start, and everyone was still busy casually chattering with each other. Suddenly, Felippa slammed a heavy bag on top of her table.

"What's that?" I asked.

"I went on a book haul before the discussion started," she replied.

"Awesome. What did you buy?"

Felippa unpacked a stack of three books onto the desk: The Metamorphosis by Franz Kafka, Sweet Bean Paste by Tetsuya Akikawa and Flowers for Algernon by Keyes. For a second, I was stunned, and then I began guffawing at the top of my lungs like a one-eyed pirate who'd found an extra bottle of booze during a shipwreck. I didn't care if anyone heard me. I checked my watch. There were still two minutes till the group discussion started. I let myself laugh for another minute before shoving my notebook back into my bag.

"Felippa, would you let me know how the discussion goes today? I think I have to be somewhere," I said, smiling.

"Right now? Can it not wait longer?" she asked curiously.

"No," I said as I stood up and ran out of the classroom, my brain desperately pleading for me not to do something foolish.

Why do I have to wait for someone to fill the emptiness within me? Why can I not fill it myself? In fact, I had already almost filled it up before, had I not? Why had I poured it away, then? I hurried to the Bus Station. The Bus I took regularly from home to the group discussion and back home was departing. I could have taken it back home, but I did not.

Another Bus stood behind it. I took this one. It went up a verdant hill that overlooked the rest of the city. A freighter train. A blow of wind. The trees rustling. The sun shining. Sunflowers smiling. Before long, I was standing in front of a heavy, oaky door. Then, I was pounded on by the fragrant aroma of fresh coffee beans wiggling through the air like cozy, warm, invisible hugs. It was perfect. Always had been.