"Lovers. Not a soft word, as people thought, but cruel and tearing."
-- Alice Munroe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mud that Splashes Up From the Bumps,
by Rewired,
01/12/00.
She hid in the shade of the weeping willow, and she could feel the old life of the tree on her back, even through her black button-down shirt and leather coat. She thought for a moment that perhaps she could remain in the darkness that swallowed the world beneath the tree forever, for she felt a certain comfort there, a security that she found hard to describe. She watched as people walked by, their minds on their short-term goals, which for most of them were reaching a slightly-altered manifestation of yesterday and every day prior. Even her own motives might be pointless, she thought - a waste of her precious time and energy. Nevertheless, she knew she had to do it, she knew she had to break her comfort to face the truth, something she had desired for so long but had, as of late, come to see as untouchable.
Until yesterday.
Her eyes skimmed across the faces now, but none which matched the photo she had burned into her mind. Then she saw him - tall, with fuller cheeks, tortured eyes and an attention that seemed focused on something that wasn't as easy to read as it was with the others in the crowds that slumped on like redundant, soulless robots on the streets around him. He was at the bus stop, taking drags off his cigarette. The bus stopped, and he waited for his chance to get on.
From across the street under the tree, she breathed in deeply, and then let it go. She ran across the blacktop, dodging the traffic expertly, casually walked up the steps that led to inside the bus.
An elderly fellow with gray hair and a thick moustache stared at her through thick-rimmed glasses that magnified his green eyes to the size of the lenses.
"Got yer ticket?" He said with a sharp impatience.
She dug in her coat pocket and handed it to him - he took it in a manner that almost seemed like disappointment.
"Okay," he said, and she nodded coldly.
She glanced at the faces and found his - he was in the seat, alone, hands in his pockets and eyes gazing out the window. She plopped down next to him, but he only glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before resuming his gazing out the window. The silence was almost comfortable, and that seemed to bother her.
She watched him, and he didn't even seem to realize it as he took his sleeve to wipe the window free of the fog that had formed on the glass.
"I wish they'd clean these damned windows," he said.
"Why stare out of them if they're dirty?"
He looked at her and shrugged. "It's nice to watch things as you go by, but you can hardly focus on the scenery when all this mud is smeared into it."
"You act as if someone put it there strictly for the purposes of pissing you off," she said in a half-joking voice. He didn't seem at all offended by the sharpness she had feared her voice had expressed.
"I suppose I kind of act that way," he said, "but I know that it's just the mud that splashes up from the bumps. I guess it is kind of dumb to mad at, huh?" He said.
She laughed under her breath - his face held o much life. What was he - forty? Fifty? He seemed to house so much sadness, but also an immense will, endurance and determination. He seemed to hold the same curiosity for her that she did for him, but anxiety barred both of them from being up front about it.
"You going to school? Have kids?" He asked, apparently feeling the need to spark some conversation.
"No kids," she said, grinning at the question, but then slipping back to an expressionless face, the eyes the only indication of her feelings. "I'm going to school to become a writer."
"I write," he said, "I do a commentary in the local paper. You ever... ?"
"I don't read the paper too often," she calmly lied, "I probably wouldn't have read anything of yours." He seemed turned off, perhaps a bit confused about the energy behind her response. She felt an anger within her that drove the next set of words. "You ever been in love?"
"I've been married."
"That wasn't my question."
His pupils dug into her. There were graves in her, tombstones that marked the supposed deaths of things which still stirred in the caskets six feet below. He saw them, he felt them, but he didn't understand. She silently wondered if he even had the capacity to do so.
"Once, a long time ago," he told her. "I never married her. I haven't seen or heard from her in a long time."
"What happened?"
He looked at her, shook his head and moved in his seat - slouching down low, crossing his arms, shifting his gaze from the window to the front of him, where he would focus on a patch that covered a hole that someone had made in the back of the bus seat.
"Traditional story," he said after a long pause, "I fucked up. The last time I saw her she had a boyfriend and I was engaged to be married. Nothing ever came out of me and her."
She scowled. "You know," she said, "there's something I don't understand about you men. Looking at you, I can feel you loved her - that's doubtless in my mind. Why didn't you try to keep her?"
"It's not as if love is about possession, dammit - it's about freedom. You're young now - give yourself some time and you'll understand. You can link up with someone at a deep level and all the surface material can distance you. When I realized I loved her, she realized that she really didn't love me as she once thought she had - or that if she still truly did love me, that giving me another chance was an exercise in futility. So I did what anyone who truly loves another would do - I accepted that her life was her own. I got married, she disappeared. End of story."
The silence grew long, and the silence grew loud. The earth stood still; only the bus moved, jittered, bumped.
He stared out the window, and began to talk again. "You know, I ride this bus every morning on my way downtown. I go into a café and write my heart away. Every day on the way to that café, in this bus, I look out this damned grody window and wonder why the world looks as bleak as it does. I sit in this seat and listen to people's conversations, people letting others know a bit about their life stories. Everybody's got a sob story. Everyone's life sucks. Everyone's existence is based upon the foundation called hell - and everyone believes their pain is greater than everyone else's'. You know what? Pain is pain. You can't measure it. The same with it's dual extreme, love. Of course your shit stinks more than his, or hers, or mine - because the shit is yours and you're closer to it. Life is consequence through experience. Life is the biggest classroom, and experience is the best teacher. Life is nearly impossible to control, at least from this stage in human evolution, and the closest you can get is controlling your stance in it. You fill yourself. Yet I sense that for some unknown reason you are mad at me. Perhaps you've read some of my material. Maybe you found my short stories, written under an assumed name, and found that my problems and thoughts and feelings have a likeness to your own. Maybe I'm just some mirror for you, some object onto which you can project all that hate you have for yourself but are unable to contain any longer. That's why you waited under that tree, staring my way, contemplating as to whether you wanted to follow me on this bus."
She swallowed.
"So am I right? Why are you sitting here next to me, digging those angry eyes of yours into me? Because of how I see the world? Because I'm hypocritical? Because I look out this damned window, and yell about the mud that splashes up from the bumps - the shit that blurs my vision as I ride on through life? I have anger, okay, and I don't blame anyone else for it. I blame myself for where I fucked up, I realize I fucked up, and I don't need anyone putting down my choices. They're mine, and they're in the past, and now I'm not happy with them but I learned from them, because although it took me a long time I finally saw that you can't undue what's been done - once an action is taken, or an inaction is chosen, it's irreversible. You live with the mud on the window, you take what you find and what you made and you bear it and go from there and do what you can."
"Do you still love her?"
"Who the hell are you?" He asked. "Why do you care? You're not her."
"Do you?"
He shook his head. "I'll always love her. That was the never question. My love for her was never the question."
She looked at him dead in the eyes. "Then there's hope for you yet."
He gave her a look that expressed his annoyance of her, an insulting look. She got up as the bus came to a stop, threw an envelope in his lap and walked off the bus.
He picked it up and opened it. It was a photocopy of a birth certificate. He shook his head, clenched his teeth.
He opened the bus window, and, with his sleeve, wiped off the dried mud from the outside. In a streak of clarity upon the window, he saw that girl in the leather jacket as the bus drove away.
He only saw her back.
-- Alice Munroe.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The Mud that Splashes Up From the Bumps,
by Rewired,
01/12/00.
She hid in the shade of the weeping willow, and she could feel the old life of the tree on her back, even through her black button-down shirt and leather coat. She thought for a moment that perhaps she could remain in the darkness that swallowed the world beneath the tree forever, for she felt a certain comfort there, a security that she found hard to describe. She watched as people walked by, their minds on their short-term goals, which for most of them were reaching a slightly-altered manifestation of yesterday and every day prior. Even her own motives might be pointless, she thought - a waste of her precious time and energy. Nevertheless, she knew she had to do it, she knew she had to break her comfort to face the truth, something she had desired for so long but had, as of late, come to see as untouchable.
Until yesterday.
Her eyes skimmed across the faces now, but none which matched the photo she had burned into her mind. Then she saw him - tall, with fuller cheeks, tortured eyes and an attention that seemed focused on something that wasn't as easy to read as it was with the others in the crowds that slumped on like redundant, soulless robots on the streets around him. He was at the bus stop, taking drags off his cigarette. The bus stopped, and he waited for his chance to get on.
From across the street under the tree, she breathed in deeply, and then let it go. She ran across the blacktop, dodging the traffic expertly, casually walked up the steps that led to inside the bus.
An elderly fellow with gray hair and a thick moustache stared at her through thick-rimmed glasses that magnified his green eyes to the size of the lenses.
"Got yer ticket?" He said with a sharp impatience.
She dug in her coat pocket and handed it to him - he took it in a manner that almost seemed like disappointment.
"Okay," he said, and she nodded coldly.
She glanced at the faces and found his - he was in the seat, alone, hands in his pockets and eyes gazing out the window. She plopped down next to him, but he only glanced at her out of the corner of his eye before resuming his gazing out the window. The silence was almost comfortable, and that seemed to bother her.
She watched him, and he didn't even seem to realize it as he took his sleeve to wipe the window free of the fog that had formed on the glass.
"I wish they'd clean these damned windows," he said.
"Why stare out of them if they're dirty?"
He looked at her and shrugged. "It's nice to watch things as you go by, but you can hardly focus on the scenery when all this mud is smeared into it."
"You act as if someone put it there strictly for the purposes of pissing you off," she said in a half-joking voice. He didn't seem at all offended by the sharpness she had feared her voice had expressed.
"I suppose I kind of act that way," he said, "but I know that it's just the mud that splashes up from the bumps. I guess it is kind of dumb to mad at, huh?" He said.
She laughed under her breath - his face held o much life. What was he - forty? Fifty? He seemed to house so much sadness, but also an immense will, endurance and determination. He seemed to hold the same curiosity for her that she did for him, but anxiety barred both of them from being up front about it.
"You going to school? Have kids?" He asked, apparently feeling the need to spark some conversation.
"No kids," she said, grinning at the question, but then slipping back to an expressionless face, the eyes the only indication of her feelings. "I'm going to school to become a writer."
"I write," he said, "I do a commentary in the local paper. You ever... ?"
"I don't read the paper too often," she calmly lied, "I probably wouldn't have read anything of yours." He seemed turned off, perhaps a bit confused about the energy behind her response. She felt an anger within her that drove the next set of words. "You ever been in love?"
"I've been married."
"That wasn't my question."
His pupils dug into her. There were graves in her, tombstones that marked the supposed deaths of things which still stirred in the caskets six feet below. He saw them, he felt them, but he didn't understand. She silently wondered if he even had the capacity to do so.
"Once, a long time ago," he told her. "I never married her. I haven't seen or heard from her in a long time."
"What happened?"
He looked at her, shook his head and moved in his seat - slouching down low, crossing his arms, shifting his gaze from the window to the front of him, where he would focus on a patch that covered a hole that someone had made in the back of the bus seat.
"Traditional story," he said after a long pause, "I fucked up. The last time I saw her she had a boyfriend and I was engaged to be married. Nothing ever came out of me and her."
She scowled. "You know," she said, "there's something I don't understand about you men. Looking at you, I can feel you loved her - that's doubtless in my mind. Why didn't you try to keep her?"
"It's not as if love is about possession, dammit - it's about freedom. You're young now - give yourself some time and you'll understand. You can link up with someone at a deep level and all the surface material can distance you. When I realized I loved her, she realized that she really didn't love me as she once thought she had - or that if she still truly did love me, that giving me another chance was an exercise in futility. So I did what anyone who truly loves another would do - I accepted that her life was her own. I got married, she disappeared. End of story."
The silence grew long, and the silence grew loud. The earth stood still; only the bus moved, jittered, bumped.
He stared out the window, and began to talk again. "You know, I ride this bus every morning on my way downtown. I go into a café and write my heart away. Every day on the way to that café, in this bus, I look out this damned grody window and wonder why the world looks as bleak as it does. I sit in this seat and listen to people's conversations, people letting others know a bit about their life stories. Everybody's got a sob story. Everyone's life sucks. Everyone's existence is based upon the foundation called hell - and everyone believes their pain is greater than everyone else's'. You know what? Pain is pain. You can't measure it. The same with it's dual extreme, love. Of course your shit stinks more than his, or hers, or mine - because the shit is yours and you're closer to it. Life is consequence through experience. Life is the biggest classroom, and experience is the best teacher. Life is nearly impossible to control, at least from this stage in human evolution, and the closest you can get is controlling your stance in it. You fill yourself. Yet I sense that for some unknown reason you are mad at me. Perhaps you've read some of my material. Maybe you found my short stories, written under an assumed name, and found that my problems and thoughts and feelings have a likeness to your own. Maybe I'm just some mirror for you, some object onto which you can project all that hate you have for yourself but are unable to contain any longer. That's why you waited under that tree, staring my way, contemplating as to whether you wanted to follow me on this bus."
She swallowed.
"So am I right? Why are you sitting here next to me, digging those angry eyes of yours into me? Because of how I see the world? Because I'm hypocritical? Because I look out this damned window, and yell about the mud that splashes up from the bumps - the shit that blurs my vision as I ride on through life? I have anger, okay, and I don't blame anyone else for it. I blame myself for where I fucked up, I realize I fucked up, and I don't need anyone putting down my choices. They're mine, and they're in the past, and now I'm not happy with them but I learned from them, because although it took me a long time I finally saw that you can't undue what's been done - once an action is taken, or an inaction is chosen, it's irreversible. You live with the mud on the window, you take what you find and what you made and you bear it and go from there and do what you can."
"Do you still love her?"
"Who the hell are you?" He asked. "Why do you care? You're not her."
"Do you?"
He shook his head. "I'll always love her. That was the never question. My love for her was never the question."
She looked at him dead in the eyes. "Then there's hope for you yet."
He gave her a look that expressed his annoyance of her, an insulting look. She got up as the bus came to a stop, threw an envelope in his lap and walked off the bus.
He picked it up and opened it. It was a photocopy of a birth certificate. He shook his head, clenched his teeth.
He opened the bus window, and, with his sleeve, wiped off the dried mud from the outside. In a streak of clarity upon the window, he saw that girl in the leather jacket as the bus drove away.
He only saw her back.
