the long way home [ h.s. ]

One | 1

one | 1

☓

| Mary |

It's raining.

It's raining very, very much.

Icy drops smack against the window unforgivingly as if they've been sent to do destruction; to bathe every inch of the world in their misery. It's become far too difficult to make out the other vehicles whooshing by, so instead, all that we can see is their faded colors through the glass.

Blobs off red and black and blue that are only present for half a moment, and then gone without a trace.

I watch them come and go for a while, and try to focus so much on those irrelevant cars, that whatever else is trying to find its way into my mind can't.

But people can never shut out everything.

Green Eyes is sitting in the middle seat today, like always, right next to the fire exit. His dark hair looks wet because of the walk he must take before getting on; the usual swoop over his forehead deflated.

To me he is Green Eyes because I don't know what his real name could be; he has stark irises, so bright that they remind me of the springtime.

He himself doesn't really reflect spring, though. He is colder; sadder. A puddle under rubbery boots, or a tree that's just begun losing leaves. I don't know why he's so forlorn all the time. I simply know that he is the way that he is, because he never lets anybody sit with him and I don't think people would want to anyway.

There's an aura about him that must be off-putting to them. Maybe it's the way he observes things, or blocks any passage between himself and another person.

I've never been sure.

Usually I spend rides sitting in the backseat, because the back of the bus gives me a vantage point; I have a view of everything.

Thin boys with lots of freckles up front, making conversation with the driver.

Loud and rowdy ones further down, wearing jerseys with team names on them even though they don't play.

Girls talking amongst one another, wafts of bubblegum and cherry lipstick and saturated rose petals. My dad used to tell me that girls are like chickens, because underneath all the primped feathers and whatnot, they're just silly birds.

I guess I should've assumed that applied to me as well. But I don't think I'm all that silly, so I once told him I was like a heron.

Herons aren't up in the clouds all the time.

They hover over the ground.

☓

As I'm sitting today, the window gets a bit boring after the first twenty minutes or so, and I begin to do a sweep. The ungodly smell of the seat leather hangs around in thick, heavy clumps. About half of the people initially on the vessel have been dropped somewhere; we'll rumble to a halt,

the doors will squeak,

and it will be slightly quieter than before.

I end up watching Green Eyes because he's looking unsettled; sort of on edge, with his gaze transfixed out the thick glass as if he cannot wait to be freed from this prison. His shoulders slouch forward slightly and his back looks like it's made of rock underneath his shirt, solid and unshakable.

He's preparing.

Nobody besides me really knows what he's about to do, because they'll be off of this contraption and padding down the sidewalk home before any part of his ritual will occur.