Have you ever dwelt upon,
How often we give in to the inertia within.
How often we feel that it is vain to struggle.
With the urge to rest,
We wait for that something or someone,
To bear us forth.

Skimming through the contours of my consciousness,
Touching every crest and trough,
Discovered this abstraction me,
As I waited for the bus, at the bus stop.
For surrounded was I,
By motley crowd of humanity…
With each countenance, debating this very thought.

Some with assorted denominations of assent.
An acceptance of the wait.
Others with differing degrees of defiance.
Defiance of this inertness.

Stood beside me, an exponent of the former, an old lady.
She waited.
I, proudly, belonged to the latter.
I waited too, of course.
Waited we both, for you see,
The difference lay not in our waiting,
For waited we both,
But in our perception of that wait.

So stood we side by side.
She and I.
I with the, stiff self-satisfaction, of the youth.
She with the, susceptible grace, of her burdening years.

And eyed we each other with the, contemptuous glance,
Of condescending pity.
A glance befitting one, of the other camp.

So stood we side by side,
She and I,
At our poles apart,
At the proximal distance of two hearts.

Well, perceptions… Insights, may clear with age,
But, nay, sight never follows the same adage.
So as each bus approached our stop,
I, discerned from a distance, which route it went,
While squinted and strained the matron bent.
The ‘Hawks’, condescension, got the better of his reserve.
I asked her which route’s bus been she seeking?
What was her destination, pray?

And it amused me to no extent,
That together did our destination lay.
So stood we side by side,
She and I,
At our proximal poles apart,
With the same destination at heart.

After a few moments I discerned
In the distance,
The bus that, we both sought.
Roaring it came,
With a self sustained storm ,at its heels.
Hardly, at approaching the stop, did it slow down
But, failed in eliciting even a frown,
Lithely did I jump into the bus,
And roared it away,
And blew, the storm of dust at its heels,
Again.

The matron only squinted and strained.
And lost I her in the disappearing blur,
I could make out on her countenance,
Through the billowing dusty whir,
A smile of faint amusement,
As she watched the bus depart.

No smile did play on my lips though,
The glory of progress marred by gnawing self-reproach.
Should have made the bus, stop.
Should have also helped her on.

So gnawed my conscience at my heart.
Reasoned my intellect with my heart thus,
Her wait had her assent.
She was merely playing her part.
You had played yours.
To each his own lot.
For hadn’t a smile played upon her lips,
As she saw, what she sought depart.
In the blur,
What I had made out as a smile of amusement,
Must have been one of wistful acceptance.
Reasoned with my guilt and doubts,
I thus.
As I sat there in the roaring bus.
It made a vicious turn to the left,
LEFT… LEFT… LEFT…??????

Out of the window flew the reproach,
Whizzing away in the whipping wind,
Blew away the doubts.

For, Goddamn!, I was in the wrong bus!!!!!