(4)(68)There’s this thing about shabbiness

There’s this thing about shabbiness that you just can’t sweep away or freshen. It’s not just a question of new upholstery—but who’s sitting on it. It’s a bit beyond what’s wilted; it’s the conditions that favour it. It’s a parasite of human nature that those who host it look stagnated. You can read all about it and more—in that shadow under their eyes. If you want to know how long they’ve slept or been awake, it’s all there encrusted in the corner of their eyes. Each new day leaves them old in their tracks, cozy in their mildew, like a forgotten parcel; who knows when and where? If you think you’re bored in your thoughts, well, imagine that that crusty, generation-old, washed-out sign didn’t budge—since anybody’s seen it. (My spouse abrutly storms in the small kitchen\bathroom just as I was thinking about worn out shabby things...She's going to shout something)

"If it weren’t for this malignant tumour under my arm, I’d spit my dentures in your face, but since I can’t stand the pain, I’ll spare you the scene. Just know it’s not because I don’t hate you enough. It took me a while to get over this, longer than it took you to fill my ashtray!

(That's all. She's going back to bed. I can go on now with my presentation)

You probably know that when you go every Friday for a couple of years to the bus station and then again every Sunday to go back, you eventually get to see a lot of different people. That's what happened to me.

In the bus station itself, among the people waiting outside or at the little restaurant, and especially among all those I had the forced leisure to, over the years, sitting in the bus with me for an hour or so, even when I was reading, every now and then, to pick up vibes here and there of the other passengers, thus involuntarily making a little sense of their lives. I could also say that involuntarily, in this context, people offered much information on themselves, a little into their lives too.

Much of what I could deduce or speculate on came first from what I could directly observe of someone or from what they gave off. Some I felt so ungrateful for seeing each time, or for the first time even, their presence offering no compensation for their presence.

There are a few individuals who seemed to have to take the same bus as I at the same time for a while. Something all passengers gave off before the bus even left was wanting to arrive at their destination already. This is about one of these temporary regulars.

They eventually always stop coming. I was, it seems, a long-standing one. But for a while, every Friday was a continuing chapter on them and their life. There was this man in particular who marked me. I suppose he was in his mid-forties. There wasn't much striking about him. He had rather short hair. His skin looked old, and with reason.

There was something about the daily routine of his life that seemed so boring and shabby that it showed all over his face. His clothes were ordinary, and he travelled only with one bag.

Each time he lit a cigarette on the way, it felt like a clock timer was on, "tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick..tick.." When he smoked, it was to finish his cigarette at his own rhythm. I realized once, with much astonishment, that it takes this guy about the same time to smoke a cigarette as it would take him to eat a small can of spaghetti, and despite his being small, there was this gigantic heaviness about him.

Every morning after he awoke, he would sit like a heavy elephant on his bedside and reach out for a small glass pot to smear a nice thick layer of dark grey ashes under each eye to give himself his customary tired, worn-out look. "-One morning,"

I heard him say on one Friday, after there was no more work, he threw his alarm clock out the window. It had been his friend for twenty years, but he wasn't going to need it anymore. He said if anyone needs an alarm clock, there's one in the parking lot. As shabby and boring as his life seemed to be, it fit well with the bus. No matter where your eye fell, it looked old; it showed bygone days of courteous usage and attendance.

It looked like everything had been stared at to shabbiness by many people who, bored and dull, looked there before you. I don't take the bus anymore. But if that bus is still in use, it probably is; who knows, you may sit exactly where he sat. But even more thrilling, before he did and I have, so many other mini short stories sat on those dirty foam seats full of cigarette holes.