For a split second, I saw my reflection. The windows of what I suppose was another bank warped the sunlight, contorting the world around me into a reversed and misshapen mess. I don't believe it was too far from the truth, but one thing was bothering me as I stared.
I couldn't see myself. I saw my reflection for a split second before the sun's glare erased my face. No matter how I titled my head, the sun's glare seemed to follow. Even the reflections avoid looking at me. My empty zone was broken with the hissing of a lumbering bus stopping before my feet.
"Ready?" asked the person to my left as she squeezed my hand. I turned my attention back to her and her big blue eyes. She was looking at me, and expecting a response. I nodded, squeezing her hand back.
We got onto the bus behind an elderly woman. I knew her, but I didn't say anything. It'd been years since we last saw each other, with me sliding over a pack of marlboros. I couldn't remember her name, she never knew mine. I was glad to see she was still in the neighbourhood. Her eyes were dark brown, and she wore a knit shawl her daughter in law gave her, but only because the one her niece gave her was made of 'the wrong materials for a woman like her'.
I nodded to the bus driver, releasing my partner's hand to dig in my pocket for the $2.50 in quarters I had pulled out of my car's cup holders. It was stuck in the parking lot of our apartment building, sadly unable to move from a spot that wasn't mine. The unnumbered and unnamed parking spots had lost their paint, and I hadn't realised my tire was so low. All I could've done was back up, and I still can't help but feel bad for taking someone else's spot. The bus driver gave me a nod and a forced smile, only noticeable by the lift in his moustache. His eyes were green.
The bus held a smell, neither good nor bad, just a faint twinge in the air that you couldn't get anywhere besides a public bus on an unseasonably warm day. I felt Rose let go of my hand as she picked a spot to sit, halfway down the bus in two seats facing forward. She took the window seat. I sat beside her. Her purse rested on her lap as she rhythmically tapped the tips of her shoes against the floor.
She was just slightly too tall for the seat, her knees lifting above the fold in her skirt. My mother used to say her nose was too big for her face. I've always adored the barely visible creases of her nose bridge, remnants of all the times she scrunched her face because I told the most obvious joke I could come up with. I remember when we had gotten her sweater, it was a small corner shop we've long since forgotten the name of. It had been really nice, and I hadn't meant to put it in the dryer but I hadn't been paying attention. Rose said that at least now it was comfortable to wear in the spring.
Every time I shuffled in my seat, I could feel the fibres of the chair moving beneath me. They didn't want me touching them as much as I didn't want to be. They weren't made to be sat on, they were made to look pretty, or scrape an adequate amount of mud off your shoes. With the pattern of random colourful splashes against a navy blue background, maybe it wasn't meant to look pretty either.
"You doing okay?" Rose asked, taking my hand in hers again. I like her voice, it was rather coarse and it sounded like it came from deep within her chest, like every word she said to you she was pulling from within. Sounds cheesy. "You're being quiet."
"Yeah," I forced out, "Just want to be done for the day." As soon as I closed my lips, my tongue filled my entire mouth, suctioning my teeth together. I wouldn't be able to open it even if I wanted to. She smiled at me and rubbed her thumb over my knuckles. I like her smile, it was crooked and chipped at from years of... whatever she had been doing.
I looked past her, out the window. We were passing a couple of fast food chains, all in the same structure surrounded by parking lots larger than the buildings. The thin strips of grass separating the vast expanses of discoloured concrete were growing to be coarse and yellow, nearly blending in.
I tapped the fingers on my free hand on my knee in a repeating pattern. Index, middle, ring, pinky, ring, middle, index, middle, ring, pinky, ring, middle, index, middle, ring, pinky, pinky-
Wait, I messed it up. I had to stretch out my fingers and restart.
The bus pulled to a stop. It was jolting, like the bus driver had thought about driving past but simply had to stop. Two kids got on, no older than thirteen or fourteen. They had their backpacks with them and paid the driver with nickels and dimes. It wasn't the regular time for schools to be getting out, that wasn't for about another hour and a half.
The bus began moving and the kids walked past Rose and I looking for a seat. One was looking straight forward, focused on settling before the movement started. The other was gripping each seat he walked past, eyes on the floor. For a split second, he glanced at me. I glanced back. His eyes were a dark blue.
It was another two stops before ours. Rose was the one to pull the cable to ask for a stop. From where I was sitting, I could see that bus driver's green eyes glance back into his overhead mirror. The bus came to a slow and steady stop, but I made the mistake of standing up too early. I felt my knees lock up below me and my upper body wobble like a bobble head. I mean, if my upper body was a head. I've lost myself in the metaphor. What else is new?
I was first off the bus, Rose behind me. She was looking at her phone, looking both directions down the street. We were situated in front of an old gas station with two pumps and a sign for 'state minimum cigarettes'. I know they wouldn't advertise '$0.30 above state minimum cigarettes', but it's still weird to lie about. Through the window I could see a familiar face that I couldn't remember the name of. I had trained him when I worked there, but ended up quitting four weeks after he started. I think it was Brian or something. It started with a B. Or maybe a J. Either way now he'd grown out his hair to the point of looking like Weird Al with a permed perm. It wasn't flattering.
Through the window, I could see most of the shop, as well as the reflections of the cars driving down the street behind us. I couldn't see my own reflection amongst them.
"Okay, so the map says it's that way," Rose said, pointing down the street. "Is that right?" I looked in either direction. I hadn't taken the bus in a while, so I had to gather my bearings. Once I reminded myself of the uneven sidewalks and the corner of never-picked-up dog poop, I nodded and began walking in the direction Rose pointed.
My shins began to feel heavy as the back of my throat grew colder. It felt as if my bones were tree trunks that decided now was the perfect time to begin growing, to make sure their branches could ruin my legs and make me walk no more. And yet, I couldn't stop. One foot slapping against the pavement after the other.
"Oh my gosh, look," said Rose after we'd travelled a couple blocks. Many of the houses had stairs leading up from the sidewalk and to the porch. Atop one guide rail of a set of stairs laid out a magnificent cream coloured cat, its belly lifted towards the sky without a care. Rose held out her hand to try to attract the attention of the beast. From within the fluff emerged a small head with eyes larger than should be possible, and the smallest of brown tipped ears. The cat curled its head into her hand without trying to get up, as if it was used to the bountiful attention it could gather by laying in this spot. It turned its neck to acknowledge me as the one not petting it. Its eyes were a pale green.
We continued forward, passing houses and shops. Some of the mailboxes hanging upon the stone walls beside the sidewalk reflected the light at us. Some of them, you could see the clouds shifting through. No matter what angle I tried to look at them from, I couldn't see my reflection. Rose pulled my attention forward as we turned down a side street.
My mother always said this street should've been one way. The sharp turns, thin street, and street parking on either side weren't safe in the slightest. Walking up the small incline on the street, one car shot down at possibly ten miles over the speed limit. I rolled my eyes. What more could you really do after so long?
The first couple houses down the street looked nice, with chain link fences and clean porches. Some were missing house numbers, or had cracks in the stairs, but they were overall nice. Down the street, we started passing the houses that never took down their decorations. I paused and stared into the eyes of a mostly deflated snowman, his hat and eyes faded from so long in the sun, with only a faint whisper of wind keeping him from being a shapeless tarp on the ground. His eyes were now yellowish and faded.
We could see the other end of the street by now, being cut off by a cul de sac. Rose was humming a tune, glancing at the space. I was focused on the feeling of the grass overgrowing the sidewalks just barely scraping the back of my ankles.
On the cul de sac sat multiple houses, some in complete disarray while others sat like picture-book descriptions. I tried not to look at it, but my eyes were drawn to one house neatly tucked away. Unlike the others with their garden decorations and nicely painted shutters, this one had evidence of billowing black smoke emerging from the front door as well as every window in sight. The tarnished auburn paint job from the outside looked like dull flames in itself. It reminded me of the decorations at the pumpkin patch my old school used to take us to as a field trip. A big plastic tub sat on the porch in plain view of the street.
"Are you sure you want to do this today?" Rose asked, placing one hand on my shoulder. I couldn't take my eyes away from the plastic bin. It was like it was set there just for me. It probably was, if the state of the house was anything. The fire rescue team wouldn't have picked up the valuables and junk, but maybe the insurance people would've.
Holding tightly to Rose's hand, we crossed the street. I climbed the white wooden steps, they were warping under my shoes, weakened since the last time I'd come. The front door was down, with yellow caution tape discouraging anyone from going in. From where I stood, I could see what used to be the couch, what used to be the door to the only bathroom in the house, what used to hang family photos. There were rectangular spots that looked lighter compared to the charred wallpaper around it. They must've been taken down since.
I knelt beside the plastic bucket and pulled off the yellow lid with a noise I can only describe as unnecessary. As I cast it aside, I froze up a bit. The pictures from the wall stared back up at me. I'd never noticed how we had never seemed to look at the camera but rather at the person behind it. My mother and father's eyes weren't looking at me, the glass too cloudy to see my reflection within. Even their pictures were avoiding looking at me.
I hadn't known their eyes were brown.
*****
I'm working through some stuff, obviously, but go ahead and analyize this however you please. I'd like to know how many different interpretations can be made. Thank you.