A Tempestuous Journey Home (Part 2)

It was just past lunch hour, so the traffic was rather heavy. The honking car horns faded into less than a background noise. They were muted. I was sitting at the bus stop opposite the university students' centre where we had our lunch. I deliberately skipped the passing thought about an introductory lecture at two-thirty.


"No, I did not remember it!" I forced myself to remember that I had supposedly forgotten about the lecture completely, not that I intended to skip it, neither that I had no intent to go for it.


Cars passed by - not so smoothly - before my eyes. They honked relentlessly but I did not hear a sound. They were like some old mute motion picture, where you would know what was going on and what sound was supposed to come out even when you didn't hear anything. Bus number 19 passed by and I ignored it. Never before in my life had a girl made me feel this way. Lost. Disoriented.


Who had ever tread this thin layer of ice? So thin and cracking. The only image I could see beyond the crack was a dark sky, spiralling water, towering cumulonimbus cloud. Torrential rain. Trees bending. I lifted my head and I knew that I wasn't daydreaming. Water bullets were fired straight to my face despite the supposed shelter the bus stop gave. The gushing water wasn't under the ice sheet. It was under the concrete drain covers. Yet, I could feel myself drowning in it. I thought I had been there forever - at the bus stop - but I looked around and I saw the same people I saw way before the storm. Did time stop? No. It had only been fifteen minutes. No bus had come ever since the last number nineteen. The scorching sun had gone under the thick, dark grey, wings of fate just within a brief fifteen minutes. Those wings were flapping. Flapping. Flapping, but not flying. Who are you waiting for, dark-grey-winged creature?


One-nine. I flagged the bus. Finally. I felt a vibration right after I was seated.


“Hi, Art!”
I called him ‘Art’ because he used to (he still did, sometimes) argue that everything – from Science to politics to Medicine – is art. I would believe what he said, but that didn't usually last very long.


"Yes, I checked your pigeon hole. There was nothing."
"You're welcome."


I paused for a moment.


"Thanks a lot, Grace. You know, I'm still stuck at the last bit of my essay. OK, back to work. See ya," I heard Arthur's distant voice.


"All the best, Art!" I replied - in an inaudible sort of scream. Just in time for me to get out of the comfort of the bus, out into the raging storm.


I was thinking...why...why did I have to face the storm again? And Arthur too. Why? Was the confirmation letter the only thing he needed to know? Was it the most important thing in this stormy weather?


[to be continued]