Evening Commute

There is an entire bus seat where this man could be sitting, so why he is sitting right next to me and invading my bubble with his knee and his hot breath is a mystery to me. Okay, so it isn’t a mystery, but maybe if I just stare blankly at the opposite window the guy will get bored of being a creep and not get off at the same stop as me and ask those same old questions about my age and where I live. My whole body is folding into my stomach with disgust. I want to punch him in the nuts so bad, but I try to remain calm. “If you punch him in the nuts,” I tell myself internally, “Then the whole situation will escalate, and you really just want to get home.”

Everyone else seems to be minding their own business, heaven forbid they ask the teenage girl if she would like assistance with the creep breathing into her ear canal. No one wants to get involved in a mess; they just want to go home and melt into their mattresses before they are forced to do it all again. Understandable, but still shitty.

I can see the man’s reflection in the window and, yeah, he is pretty fucking high. He looks like one of my dad’s friends, maybe he is, I don’t know. My sister would have just asked him already, “Do you know Frank?” Then she would have told him that if he kept looking at her, she would stick a fork through his eyeballs or something. I’m not my sister. Don’t get me wrong, I would stick a fork through his eyeballs, but I would try to avoid the confrontation if possible.

The creepy old man slides something my way. I see a little, blue box out of the corner of my eye, but I pretend not to. Persistent, he pushes the box into my thigh. I snap, “What‽” and then sigh and lower my voice, “Yes? Can I help you?” Pointing, he whispers, “Open it.” I don’t particularly like it, but I shrug and comply. The box contains a tiny wooden ship. “For you,” he says. His smile is almost endearing. Lifting the ship, I notice writing on the side: “The Time Traveler.”

When I look up again the man is gone. I mean really gone; I cannot see him anywhere. “Excuse me,” I say to the woman sitting a few feet away “Excuse me, but the old man…the one who was sitting here?” She looks confused, “What old man?” she asks, seemingly perplexed. “The one…” my words drift off as I notice the time flash in little red letters on the display at the front of the bus. The time says 6:00, but that’s impossible…then I look out the window and see that the part of town we are in is one we passed thirty minutes ago. I look back down at the tiny ship in my hands, “Time Traveler.”