Bus

A STUPID scum in human form stood on the aisle of the bus, no, leaned on the backrest of a seat from the aisle of the bus. It’s like this: if we are to divide a row of standing people inside a standing-room-only bus into squares of standing space, we would judge the scum’s pose that day as quite off the center of his square. This was because he leaned the bottom of his scum’s-spine on the backrest of the seat nearest to him, invading a significant---though tiny---part of the sitter's own square, not to mention the person's standing behind him, since he had to move back for his spine's bottom to reach the backrest. And we must bear in mind that the space squares made by seats inside a bus cannot follow the pattern of the squares made by people standing in same. Our scum's inarticulate rebellion, if it was a rebellion, can be traced to this squares-viewpoint, because it was as if he was stupidly demanding the standers follow the large squares distribution of the sitters' squares, a secret/dumb manifesto the conductor might not allow. Now, to prove to you that this form of laziness on the part of this scum does indeed impose a bad-day start on others, consider this picture: he leans on the backrest, the woman sitting on the seat would have to either move her whole back a little towards the seat of the person beside her, or otherwise let her back lean sideways towards the seat next to her, doing a diagonal way of sitting, or lean forward, which we can’t really consider as leaning anymore. Doing the last, the woman might settle for leaning her head on the back of the backrest of the seat in front of her, pretend to sleep perhaps. The discomfort this produces need not be discoursed upon here, because this essay's being a short story about a bus ride dictates that we keep our word and make it truly short---no one would really want to prolong such a ride if the whole ride is this unhealthy, would there be now?
    Space trouble doesn’t end here. Notice: the other woman to the window, the woman beside our earlier woman near the aisle and our scum, was also now affected, her space too shrinking in effect. And going back to the squares on the aisle, though the person in front of the scum got a bigger space by virtue of the scum’s backing a little towards the backrest, the person behind the scum had his square diminished, as we earlier mentioned, leading to complications.
    If it is hard to imagine the discomforts this produces, consider the fact that our bodies give off heat, and therefore putting more body matter into a square adds more heat into that square. Certainly the person behind the person behind the scum could always move back in his turn, and so on, but suppose that turns out to be impossible. Suppose bags are on the aisle in the last square and this last person can’t move back any further? Well, you see? The law of inertia sometimes has to stop somewhere, becoming rest, and it may be a most uncomfortable kind of rest for the affected. This discomfort, all because the laziness of the body of a working-class element on a bus threw his space around as he pleased.
    And why would such a working class element, supposedly filled with understanding for the discomforts a lack of space offers a man, why would such a man, or scum, be suddenly so inconsiderate, assuming quite generously his awareness of the inconsideration (quite generously, I say, for it is often that working class elements---whose education are as undernourished---are unaware of their own little oppressive existences upon their fellows’ spaces)? Why? Judging from the scum’s closing his eyes in abandon, even while standing, we may be led to imagine a forgivable tiredness, tiredness let’s say from some overwork within a highly inconsiderate company. And haven’t many of us sought forgiveness, at one time or another, asking to be excused, even without saying it ("excuse me," that is), during those times that we’ve felt so tired from some overtime work, or felt nausea from having had too much to drink, or felt dizzy within a pregnant stage---thus letting our space expand to steal from another’s space? Well, maybe. And moments like this, like this happening today to the few affected persons, this moment could perhaps be considered as payment for such impositions that we ourselves have dropped on the bad day hours of some people during our own moments of villainy. For it might be inferred that human beings are as actors, this time playing the role of the villain or oppressor, at another time playing the role of hero or the oppressed.