Commute

The bus jockeys along over the rough road like a stagecoach or carriage ambling over a pioneer byway of cobblestones. Some of the passengers strike up conversations over trivial day to day tidbits or report ceaselessly on wannabe vacations, the cutest grandchildren in the world, or work before it even starts. Get a life. Let the rest of us sleep or doze or read or escape into a book, please. At each stop, the riders amble onto the coach selecting pre-assigned seats from the day before and the day before that and the day before that -- from weeks on end of riding the same monotonous drill to the same monotonous destination through the same monotonous weather. Even the changes of seasons are not well marked or recognized in the dark from behind the mirrored shield of the illuminated coach. The bus jiggles relentlessly as it struggles to reach freeway speed as it trundles forward to the end of its route so that it can repeat the same route in the other direction, turn and repeat until rush hour is over. Steady articulation of any task, even reading, is near impossible with the constant jostling. Latecomers redistribute as others leave at a main hub. Some are still contained and carried forward beyond the hubbub of activity at a central location. No lattes or donuts or biscuits McStyle. Just more stopping and going and stopping and departing and continuing towards that daily destination called employment.