I wake up, head groggy with too much sleep or too little of it, I can’t tell. My mouth feels funny; I taste old food and dry saliva. I look in the mirror & see something that resembles a human being, getting wet doesn’t help.
I open the closet & decide what to wear. I already wore that last week. I don’t think anyone would have noticed but you can never tell…
I look back at the person staring back at me; a face that looks like it’s been seen unnecessarily too many times. I hate him already.
It’s seven in the morning but I already feel sick. The smoke in my face burns my eyes & I taste diesel. I destroy muscle trying to catch my ride but I still end up shelling out 50 to a sweaty-grinning-ruddy-faced pathan.
I get in the bus. Faces hit me like someone prodding an old wound. I sit down quickly and stare into space. When ever the bus jerked a little too much I prayed for a head on collision. A teacher splattered onto a wind shield, body parts of students cut up, flying debris, blood and oil, body fat on burnt ragzine, HEY have you seen that Chickni Bachi Yaar that looks like Sushmita! The Driver is still avoiding death so far, so I guess I’ll have to kill time by listening to this dude describing some chick’s butt. This is a Normal day.
“This is your life, and it’s ending one minute at a time.”
I shake hands with every Guy that gets on the bus after me. A ceremonial thing, maybe because it’s supposed to infuse a sense of brotherhood or something, I take their sweaty, dry or wet palms in a warm gesture of goodwill. God knows how many times they’ve dug into their nostrils with those?
After wasting two hours of my life and feeling my bladder begging for mercy with every lurch of the van, I run like HELL! Yesterdays feces and old urine hit my nose; I breathe with my mouth while a cockroach greets me by waving his feelers. The Graffiti tells me who’s hot and who’s a bitch so I have something to read. Not a bad way to start the morning, who says I don’t read? This is better then the Bullitin Board! And Entertaining!!
With every moment I’m on the look out, hoping no one will take a picture of me in the cubicle with his cell phone. I hear a shutter click; loud curses and it seems I’m safe for the day. Hair covered soap and a leaky faucet await me, while I steal another look at the monster. This is going to be a long day.