Life

Somewhere there is an old lady sitting on a semi crowded bus. She is wearing loose black pants with a red, purple, and green floral pattern that gather at the bottom, with a lavender shirt and a straw hat over wild but endearing wiry salt and pepper hair. Her feet look bulky and large, you can tell they feel that way with each step she takes in her dusty red clogs. There is a red market bag on the floor by her feet full of fresh produce and fish that a man in a crisp black suit with a white shirt, black tie, and shoes that reflect the red bag scrunches his nose at before pulling out his mobile phone and reading his email. She turns her head to look out the window and, past her reflection, she notices her stop is next. With knobby, crooked hands she reaches for the red buzzer to signal the driver seated so far away. The tanned skin around her brown eyes wrinkles as something crosses her mind and makes her smile. She reaches down with those same aged hands for her bag and uses all the effort she has to lift herself off the seat. The man in the suit shifts to let the woman by while still staring at his phone. Standing up, as straight as possible, she is hardly at the man's shoulder. The bus brakes hard as it comes to a stop and sends her forward with a little jolt. Surprisingly, and gently, the man in the suit reaches out and grabs the woman's arm to steady her. The wrinkles are back in her eyes as she offers a warm smile and soft "Thank you" and the man looks up from his phone, long enough for her to see that he has blue eyes that wrinkle too, with a smile and quick nod. She carefully steps down off the bus, red bag in one knobby hand while the other guides her down by grasping at the door. When she reaches the sidewalk, she pauses just for a moment, shifts the weight of her bag, and continues on to the right.

Somewhere there is a little girl with a red bow in her hair. She is sitting in the back seat of a small silver car. Tied to her wrist is a red balloon with white words printed on it reading "Congratulations on your Graduation!" She is fidgeting with her seat belt as the car idles in front of a bright red light. She gives up working on making the seat belt comfortable, and instead looks out the window at a bus leaving its latest stop.