homeward bound

I sat on one of the benches closer to the front. One of those rows of four, facing inward towards its stainless steal and ass-worn bench mirror reflection. People continued to pay their fares or flash a card and scurry for a place to settle. I was one of the first on, so I ended up loosing myself in the steady parade of homeward bound students.

I stared at my work; two large canvases, covered in my marks, coloured to my choice, and created to my preference. These acrylic strokes were mere trails of my hand flow. I was their creator. I controlled the paint, and made it not what it was, but what it was considered: art. I never called my paintings art. My drawings, no. Anything I produce is called what it is; a painting, a design, a drawing, music. But not art. I never called them that, but everyone else always did.

I stared into the white and oak back of stretched canvas when I began to listen. I listened to the people talking, the sounds of the treading shoes as they passed by, and I concentrated on how the girls' steps were different from those of the men. I listened to the sound of the over-sized windshield wipers on the caterpillar eyes of the bus sweep back and forth, creating a clear window of vision for the driver for only a second, before the rain quickly flooded the surface again. I looked ahead and noticed the what was once a mirror image of just a row of four seats had evolved into a group setting of four newly faced students I'd likely never see again. The one seated second from the front of the bus was bobbing. Rhythmically keeping beat with the outward motion of his face. He casually looks around at the people piling on the bus, and I judged him.

He's probably a nice guy, one of those super friendly student council kids. One of the ones that man the door at student parties, just so he can politely welcome and thank the newcomers for coming to such an event. Happy-go-lucky, high on life, and only life. I make judgments because I can, and because it's my job. I was always told that without judgment, there'd be chaos - no laws, no reason for doing or reason for being. Without judgement, the punk-ass dirt of society, the prom queen cheerleader we all knew and loathed in highschool, the repitious workaday of the lemmings in our world would never exist. Interest in anything or anybody would diminish, and reason for being would be just to keep the air thick with population. I made accusations according to what I saw him doing, as I do with anyone, and I built my own story of characters in my head. People interest me, but my depiction of them makes them just as interesting as I want. It makes them those characters, with those flaws and perfections that I want in them. Student council president, over here, has been pinned a main character in my demented story, but he's just a character, a product of my judgment. Important? no.

I kept my head low and glanced out the corner of my eyes at the woman sitting next to me, assuring me of not being caught. She sat upright, staring off out the windows behind the four new faces I'd never remember a week from now. The new friends invited to have coffee in our little mobile living room. She ignored the filling space, the warming surrounding air, the brush of backpacks and loose fabric on her shoulders and legs as students walked towards the back of the bus.

I glanced back at the beat keeper, and noticed he's changed it up a bit. He's doing the casual rhythmic lap-pat. The meats of his palms comfortably rested on his khaki pants, while his fingers uniformly raised like attentive soldiers, and collapsed again together. Alternating, his hands patted his lap, maybe just to pass time, or maybe because, at some point, the rhythm really does get you.
Funny, though.. I looked at his shirt for a trail of wire leading to either sides of his head. A wire that carried the beat he kept. There was nothing. Just the emptiness of his black t-shirt, casually thrown on that morning without much consideration, without realizing his shoes didn't match his khaki-black combination. Headphones or not, he continued to happily take on the role of the heart-beat in this body of students, surrounded in our steel skin and round rubber legs. He was the heart, the lifeblood, the working machine that never lost face in the waves of students. He was the center of this living thing, but he wasn't important.

The woman next to me began to quietly make noises with her throat. Almost as if she was trying to get words out, but had no tongue to do so. Her forced sounds became more and more predictable, like a skipping record of a song you've known since you were eight. I stared into my lap, with melodic grunts to my right and tapping that seemed to grow louder and louder across from me. I put the sounds together. Everything at that moment seemed to fit together, perfectly. The washed out chatter, the final footsteps - everything just fell into itself - the beats, the breathing, the stop and go sounds of the windshield wipers --

this living, breathing orchestra, crammed like sardines in a tin can,
creating something beautiful,
something from nothing,
creating music,

creating art.