"I will not make a gift of myself.
I must be won."
HERMAN HESSE
Harold thawed behind the bus. He spots for a second, a kid licking a massive lolly and found it funny. The kid's eyes had three-sixty vision, in constant search of an undisclosed thing. Then he'd have intermissions of bugging his mother, offering a single lick. Mother refuses. Suddenly, one ambitious bite of the candy caused the boy to cry in pain. But Harold didn't hear none of it, as his headphones were blasting an alternative pledge on what could conquer the estate of his sympathy. Harry by Bauhaus played.
I have you.
You have me.
We go where we want to be.
We have it.
We have fun.
We go places to have some.
La-la-la-la-la-la-la-la.
The bus arrives at the next stop. The mother with the sweet kid got off holding her child's free hand. The bus continued forward optimistically. All of a sudden a different dance occurs.
"Good morning passengers, the bus seem to be acting up. I am going to need you all to evacuate in the next stop. Another bus has been called to serve you shortly. I apologize for the inconvenience. Thank you for understanding. Have a nice day!" the speaker voice announced.
The passengers escorted themselves out, moaning with feats of eye rolls. Harold waits it out in his seat. He likes being last to leave a soon-to-be abandoned place. He'd force a wide smile for the driver inspecting the seats and their vacancies.
"What's wrong with the bus?" Harold asked.
"We'll see," the driver said, turning back to the wheel, and pretended to make a call.
The door closes before Harold, as he tunnels through a crowd of unsatisfied riders, where a crooked tree shaded most of them.
Harold finds a huge flat rock on the corner and resumes his thawing from the sounds of dream-lifted applause inside a blissful dream he just had, in which he is onstage performing. He woke up this morning, mourning a songbird that died, for Harold's return.
A few followed his mind's provision, taking in the coolness of the shade. Harold tried to counter their eye darts with a twist of his aching neck. After having slept in a demon possessed posture for a ten-hour period. He'll stand up, as someone's cigarette smoke whips his nasal passage.
"Sorry, I can't control the wind," the man said, puffing.
"No, of course. Would you like to sit?" Harold said to his majesty.
"Oh gee, thanks. My legs are killing me," the king sat upon his throne.
Harold finds a fortune from a Chinese cookie, stuck to the stop sign pole with gum.
"Emptiness is the mother of all things," he read.
Like bread, the sun rose.
The new bus arrives. He makes his way inside that masterpiece, being last to enter. The door closes behind him. It would zoom through onto the next street, as if the stop sign didn't exist.
* * *
Harold arrives at his front door. Not amused by the parking lot, indicating that there's visitors. He was careful to open the screen door quietly. As he checks his pockets for a home key to no avail of the priori apparatus. His chest pocket was empty too. With a hole in the bottom, from a sharp pen, maybe. Crumbs of rose petals stuck to his fingertips. He was clueless to how it got there.
