The Bus to Cabanaconde

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The bus was absolutely chockers! There wasn’t even standing room in the aisles. Ben was told that, within 5 or 10 minutes, it would empty. The bus from Chivay to Cabanaconde was like a city bus; stopping in villages along the way.

Being the last one on the bus, Ben stood next to the driver and enjoyed amazing views of Canyon country. However the promised emptying of the bus after 5 or 10 minutes never came. Dropping people off at each town, more were always picked up. Eventually enough people got off the bus for Ben to sit on the console separating the driver from the steps. Then, soon after that, some elderly ladies boarded the bus.

Ben offered the oldest lady his seat on the console. Standing up, he was shoved back in to the aisle of the bus’s seated section by that same lady. The driver’s compartment door slammed shut and Ben discovered the true nature of the rural bus. On a city bus with standing passengers people filter to the back to make more space and parents put kids on their laps. On this bus, common sense wasn’t just an English phrase, but a foreign philosophy. Kids stood on their seats and yelled as their parents sat by. The crushed front of the bus had Ben standing two-by-two in the aisle whilst at the back people had a bubble of personal space. Ben grabbed the top hatch bars and wished that the idiots in the middle of the bus would take two steps back.

The lady who had shoved him proceeded with her shoving as soon as the bus took off. Determined to make the bus´s rear, she would achieve it with force! As she pushed past, Ben said loudly “hey, we can all take a step back or you can just shove people to get where you’re going?” Naturally he was ignored, although next day he was recognized as “that guy on the bus who yelled at someone”.

It was about an hour to Cabanaconde. Ben spent his time looking enviously at the people at the back of the bus, angrily at the parents of kids standing on seats and furiously at the old bitch who was the reason he was back there in the first place.

Getting off the bus, people at the back shoved their way through while the people at the front stood their ground. At the second last stop Ben got off, easing the congestion and getting free from the constant shoving. He was worried that, for the first time in his adult life, he was going to take a swing at someone and that person would be twice his age, half his size and probably a woman.

The bus finally emptied at Cabanaconde like a clown car in the circus. That it was a large bus rather than a tiny car did nothing to lessen the situation´s ridiculousness.

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