Here. Now.
For many, the daily bus commute at the end of an intense day of work is just another part of the daily labour. To others, this is a moment of catharsis and meditation; but there is something that disturbs it. That which has provoked the interruption is external, but its nature is entirely internal.
In a moment of tranquillity, when one lets their senses be taken away by the shaky rocking of the bus, and by the song of the chorus that inhabits it, it is here that some of us become more susceptible to the seductions of our own internal world; to the enchantment of the primitive.
With your guard down and your sensitivity up, you look without pretensions to the right, and unconsciously stare down the barrel of the Cupid's rifle. He pulls the trigger.
You don't see much. The outline of a chin, the shape of a nose, a glance from behind glasses that reflect the brightness of a cellphone below, but it's much too late. You were in the crosshairs, and now you've been hit.
Your heart is shot and sinks down to your chest, hiding as if a last resort - futile, yes - so as not to be snatched. You feel like it has been ripped away and doesn't belong to you anymore, but rather to that face, right there in the seat to the side.
Your lungs are pulverised. Breaths become short - it is almost imperceptible for those around you. The bullet has opened a hole in each of your lungs, it doesn't matter how much you take in air, it will never be enough to fill them. But at some point you need to exhale, and when that happens, it's as if the oxygen will never return to its old home deep in your chest.
Your eyes are still intact in large part and dart to the window, trying to read the traffic signs outside in an attempt to distract themselves, but the words don't mean anything anymore. Their letters jump out of their outdoors and spell out lost poems to wild deities in the air. The window doesn't act anymore like a portal that connects you to the world outside, but rather as a mirror that forces you to face yourself. What are you thinking, you ask yourself, there is no chance. And even if there were one, in the abstract, let's be realistic: it's public transportation, no one ends up here out of their own will. No one outside of a lunatic thinks of these things in a moment like this.
And yet, here you are. If your brain were working with more capacity, it would have blown out like a car's engine. At the moment, this doesn't sound like the worst possible fate, because somewhere deep down you know your stop will come.
Bravery suppresses prudence and you risk another glance. In these stolen seconds, a pair of eyes meet one another. They have looked back.
Back to headquarters, the mirror on the window becomes your best friend.
But in these few seconds, in this one shared breath, it was enough to notice that they're exactly your type. I'm not even talking about preference, but rather of soul. In that eternity in which you've looked at one another, you were able to notice that they were made out of the same clay as you; and you know that they're just another one of the many parts of the prime humans who were split apart in the beginning of everything, so long ago, when the skies were still dotted with stars and the land with trees.
But you're not there in that lost moment. You're here. Now. And they're right there. Now. After so long, so many lives separated by oceans, countries, by dangerous animals and persons, and by all the things that live in the dark, they're right there, just two or three metres away. And they looked back.
This moment isn't populated by love - not by the modern notion of what we call "love", at any rate. It is something deeper, more powerful, and much more primeval. What were a few embers hidden in the quotidian have become a roaring inferno where once lived your heart.
This is the moment you notice that looking is also touching. After all, your eyes touch the light that reflects the world. To see the world you must touch it with your eyes; and you yearn for that tact once again.
Another glance, this one longer. More than anything, the sentiment is of doubt. Were they really looking back at you? Did they even notice you? Or were you no better than a stranger in the crowd when you came in?
Your internal security has been compromised, and your self-esteem, which isn't usually very low, is now in doubt.
All of your questions are answered when they spy back at you once again, and the corner of their mouth curves up in a smile, so short to the point of being nigh invisible to inexperienced eyes.
You smile back.
Back to base, the mirror.
The acid of doubt has eaten a hole in your chest, and now the blazes of the inferno are escaping and spreading everywhere.
They saw! They perceived you! They touched you too!
In that moment there was no word; we're far beyond that step, we've transposed to a zone far away from the dominion of language as we know it and have arrived at the realm of the oldest speech in the world: the body.
What we had there was a tacit acknowledgement of intention, and an acceptance of it. Nothing more and nothing less.
Your best friend, the mirror, reveals a darkened world outside so as to better reflect your reality inside. At first you believe it does that for you, but after a deeper examination, you notice that you can also see them there, in that reflection.
In two dimensions you are even closer to one another. You could reach your hand and touch their face, but your arms are too busy panicking, trying to remember how they work.
They are alone in an individual seat, and you are in a double seat, yet equally solitary. The realisation of the implications begin to haunt you.
Do something!, you think. Come closer, please! Say something! Shout something! Ask something! Anything, please!
It's no use, they can't hear you. Both are far too proud to let the look last for too long - maybe afraid of your intentions not having been transparent enough, a legacy of the doubt and insecurity from before.
You want the road to last forever, because at some point one of you will have to do something, but you know that won't be the case.
The fire in your chest has begun to hurt, you burn yourself with your own passion, and a bitter taste climbs up to your mouth. This isn't good.
Outside, the city takes shape; the corners seem more familiar by the minute.
The reasonable side of your mind has been making calculations regarding the distance, and it has concluded you're in the last semaphore before your stop.
Passion turns to despair. The cold outside seems to cross the mirror in front of you and hit you right in the chest. The cold realisation that the end is near.
You look back over to them a couple more times, your soul implores you to do something, to write your number in a paper and to let it fall to the ground, to ask for their name, anything! Anything is better than your fate!
But your body isn't so naive. It knows this dance, it has been in it before, and it knows what needs to be done.
Your legs lift you from the seat, your arms reach for the signal to stop the bus, and you're carried to the doors.
The bus stops shortly after the doors are open. It is dark outside. They aren’t there, outside. There is no mirror outside, only the cold and solitude.
You look back to where they are. Some part of your brain wants them to be looking away, it wants for you to have imagined the whole thing, for it to have all been a daydream.
You're unlucky. They are staring back at you, those patient and curious eyes asking what do you think you're doing; where do you think you're going?
All of your chest braces itself to squeeze out a word - any would be better than silence - but your lips remain sealed.
You hop from the bus and watch as that iron dragon carries them away to where they need to be. You're left alone on the side-walk, with only your thoughts to recompose and the broken pieces of yourself to pick up from the ground. After all, tomorrow is a new day, and the buses don't stop.
Who knows, maybe tomorrow another one will return your glance. You laugh at the notion and walk back home.