this seat is taken

She was late for work.

Nonchalantly, she joined the queue of commuters impatiently waiting to take their seats.
She was thinking of a mundane week ahead.
She scooted inside the bus and probed the passengers haphazardly seated.
Some of them glanced at her. Some didn’t care.
She analyzed the look on their faces, trying to decipher each stranger’s thought.
Trying to obtain a synopsis of their characters, running a quick background check on them.
Questioning their motives.
Each stranger’s motive for seating on that random bus seat.
As if that would be possible in less than ten seconds of her amble along the narrow aisle.

She perused the men and quickly averted her eyes when theirs met hers.
She preferred to be seated beside the ladies.
She had always been this sexist as a passenger.
Aside from that, she didn’t care.

Apparently, it wasn’t her lucky day.
She chose to settle on the three-seater left side of the bus.
She was seated next to…she didn’t mind checking.
She was sleepy and exhausted already.

The traffic was unbearably slow that morning.
She would be late for work, no doubt about that.
She checked the stationary vehicles at the window, fuming and riled.
Her seat mate on her left, by the window, was looking at the road, too.
He/she was tapping his/her fingers at the red bag on his/her lap, while nodding his/her head along to whatever music he/she was listening to.
She still wasn’t sure if she should be sexist to the person on her left.
But she sure was sexist to the one on her right.
Who, by the way, had his head swaying while sleeping and had almost touched her shoulders.
She made a heavy sigh while she noticed that the bus conductor was nearing her party.

With the aid of her dubious peripheral vision, she concluded that the person on her left was a woman.
Her marred vision whispered to her that her seat mate to the left had shoulder-length jet-black hair.
Despite the flatness of her chest, she wore a white shirt underneath a plaid polo.
Maybe she was a sapphist?
Whatever. Too much prejudice perhaps.
The conductor came and asked her of her destination.
Then she felt something.
It’s as if her seat mate on her left was looking at her.
She felt a pair of eyes piercing through her face.
She was not sure if the person was poring over her face or just plain staring.
She was about to finally look at the woman’s direction when her seat mate suddenly diverted her head to the conductor and uttered her destination.
She was taken aback when she heard her voice.
She wasn’t a she.
She was a he.
She felt her cheeks blushing.
What a fool!
Guys these days.
They even have nicer hair than women.

She turned full-time sexist then.
She wasn’t too at ease seated between men.
This time, she didn’t mind.
She was too sleepy to care.

An hour later, she was still on the road.
Trapped between a snoozing man on her right and a dude on her left whom she thought was cool.
Cool.
Just because he seemed like an artist and someone who could vandalize the inside of this boring bus with his artworks.
She was stereotyping perhaps.
But the thing was, she caught him looking at her face when she peeked at the window.
That was when after she awoke from her nap.
Honestly, she was caught off her guard.
What if she drooled while dozing off?
That would have been disconcerting.
But then again, she resorted to napping.
She hoped to be invisible while she slept.
The traffic was eternal and so was this awkward bus ride.

When the bus hit the first station, there were seats left vacant.
Embarrassed still, she changed her seat so that she could continue her nap.
She took the seat in front of him.
Heck, it almost made no difference.
She was still conscious of his presence.
She was too sleepy to mind.

Another hour had passed and it was time to move out.
She stood and saw him standing, too.
She hastened down the bus and walked briskly.
Simply because she doesn’t want him to remember her dozing face.

Strangers Part 1 was written two years ago. It was based on a true story.