Tangents

Today began abruptly with the increasingly loud electronic beeping of my mobile phone in my ear and eye shattering sun light slithering through the blinds. As I do every morning, i opened the vertical blinds to see what the day had bought and discovered blue sky with a slight cloud pattern indicating the rain and showers which had been plaguing the area may have dispersed, hoping this might indicate the acceptance of a weekend away to the beach.

I found myself short of headphones as they had lost the rubber coating and would simply scrape metal shards through my ear, using another pair it was only half-way along my walk to the bus i realise I can not put my MP3 player in my pocket and the cord to my ear without one or the other pulling out, frustration ensued. As I approached the bus stop I watched as a bus enter the intersection and pull out and hoped it would drive straight but instead it turned and headed down the route on which I should be travelling, I let out a audible 'fuck' as the wait which would come with another bus was highly frustrating to a problem which could have been solved by leaving the house 30 seconds earlier. Thinking about a total of 30 seconds could solve many problems and many situations could have ended differently, for example how many steps ahead the clerics were in Pakistan when the suicide bomber ripped through the crowd.

On the bus, the same bus and route every day, I see a variety of people which also catch the same bus and journey on the same route every day, in particular today I spotted a regular couple. They hopped on at their usual spot, together. I notice them because they have outstanding features which always perk my interest and imagination when trying to decide where they work, how they live and what lives they may lead.

The couple seemed to be matched through girth and style. He wears a navy suit jacket, with no tie and an slightly dressed down striped shirt, chest hair poking through from the top. This is not what strikes my imagination into order, what does is the fact the man has hair which flows to his shoulders and seems to have been brushed carefully to do so, looking like an oversize highschool boys undercut. He must use a host of products on it to keep it straight, as it always looks somewhat greased or wet, like he has hurried form the shower to the bus stop without drying it, maybe this is to have it wave naturally and flop disgustingly over the seat on which he sits. He seems to fancy brown clothes and his pants are brown and shoes are a coffee colour, with large sunglasses with coppered looking frames with brown nearly opaque lenses. He may wear contacts underneath and they may be prescription. I imagine he is an architect in a mid-tier company operating on the 10th floor overlooking a brick wall in the city. He spends his day staring from his window carefully crafting lines and angles and using his black and white imagination to convert he red and white brick wall in front of him into architecturally sound semi-artistic houses while drinking from a coffee mug saying "Grumpy" with a picture of one of the seven dwarves.

As they sit on the bus, it stops in the city and just before the stop, they talk quietly to each other saying have a good day, kissing each other lightly on the cheek some days wishing they wouldn't ever see each other again other days hoping they would simply sit with each other on the bus and ride the rest of the route all the way home in a giant loop. They would sit at home and devour home brewed coffee and croissants while reading time magazine until lunch when they would walk to their favourite cafe and indulge in BLTs.

He kisses her and she moves from her seat, letting him pass. She sits back down and ruffles through her bag reaching for her make up case, pulling out a mirror and foundation. I sit with my sunglasses on looking into the mirror over her shoulder trying to get an image of her face, other than her side profile, from the reflection in the mirror. She stands taller than him and with quite broad shoulders, dressed in a white shirt with black skirt with a jacket 3/4 down her arms wrapping around her. She sits and applies foundation through her mirror and I see a large, magnified mascara adorned eye staring into the mirror. I wonder what type of job she does, I think she works as an accountant, in a mid-tier accounting firm in the city, however gets paid more than her husband. What drew them together was their love of the black and white, lines and angles for him, red and black lines for her.

I imagine they feel in with each other through a chance meeting in a lift and struck up a conversation about a strange band shirt he was wearing, the Beatles I would say and their love for an album and then, as they found out later, a love for a particular song. They play this song when feeling particularly nostalgic and want to get lost in once innocent romance of the past to forget about the future and live only for each other.