The bus route (2017)

Sometimes waiting for a bus in a small town takes courage. That day, we were the only ones at the bus stop, which is not a good sign. The size of the crowd is like a measuring cup. The more people at the shelter, the closer the bus and inversely, the fewer people, the farther the bus, the longer the wait. On that day we were the only ones and we were hoping for the best: for the exception to the rule. The sun went down and the northern night came with her big coat. Just as we were wondering if buses were still coming to this bus stop, a pickup truck stopped in front of us with its window sliding down. A quick glance at the truck door revealed that it belonged to the City’s transit department. The driver was leaning toward us, his body language was telling us that he wanted to say something. We approached. The man explained that an accident on a main street was blocking any buses from coming to our location. To our surprise, he offered to drive us home.

John was his name. He had been a bus driver with the City for 35 years and was now in charge of the logistics of moving people. He said that the accident had happened hours ago and police were still busy at the scene. He said that his job was to try to keep the system on time and picking people here and there at any congestion points was actually the best thing to do. John was driving very slowly. The heat was on. It was definitely a comfortable ride. We followed the same route as the bus would have taken and stopped near our home. We thanked our driver for his help.

Sometimes waiting for a bus in a small town takes a lot of courage, but occasionally something unexpected happens, something that could only happen in such a place.

Daniel H. Dugas
November 2, 2017

Image: By Stu pendousmat at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=13114323