Gaps - Vacant seats and noise

On the top deck of the double-decker bus, the jerks, inertia, the balancing acts are steps of a ritual dance well-practiced by many, yet to be choreographed.

Each time, up the short and narrow stairwell he has the slight anxiety of a mundane revelation: “if there’s a seat?”

The empty seats are gaps for him to breathe. Not only allowing him a sigh of relief, the randomly vacant seats are arrangements in the scores for various tunes of Minor Joy.

Despite his age, he couldn’t conceal the grateful expression on his face. Grateful to the mercy, of one spared the discomfort of standing; gripping on the handrail. The joy he felt, the luxury of choosing a seat (if it was not crowded). But to whom should he be grateful?

An ideal seat: a window seat for him to lean one side of his shoulder against, ignoring the stain, the grease from oily heads, or insect crawling on the pane, which he could not tell it is glass or plastic.

But the bus was noisy, the chatter and laughter of a bunch of loud, gangling youth. The Young Relative would say, “These pasty faces deserve to be guillotined.” But they are only the chorus, the backup vocals to the mobile chirping of a North Indian woman.

The Young relative would say.” I hate those idiots who think it is only the migrant workers that are rowdy or loud, many expatriates are just as bad…” Young relative’s diatribe would usually go on and go.

At the evening of his life, at the age of 58, such issues are far from his thoughts.
This evening came gradually, the disappearance and appearance of the sun, can never be trapped by a single frame of his vision. The switch from day to night is not how we turn on/off a fluorescent ceiling light. The social angst like his ambition, in morning, has all faded into the background it had emerged from. During his 40s, it was grey; now in his 50s, the colour is at most off-white. The dream of space travel is now ridiculous; the trite dream of a million dollar account is greed, according to his faith, at least.

His angst and ambition like his physique and mental agility have been waning since middle age. Maybe it has something to do with his gene; some would blame it on his lifestyle, his diet, what time he sleeps, etc. At the evening of his life, his chief concerns are gaps. The gaps between the concrete kerb and the bus, the platform and the train; the gaps he could see between the seated passengers.

The Young Relative, who is not that young actually, once mentioned, “This curse’s intensity is defined by the number of days we spent on earth.” He was not following his train of thought.