Adjustments
Bus journeys where you have ample time to notice people, provided you’re not sleeping, makes you spot interesting things. How people keep fiddling with things right from the beginning till the end. First up is the luggage. If it can’t be stowed in the hold or the overhead rack, it goes under the seat, where it keeps shifting with the bus’ swaying. Then there are minor things like curtains. ‘Oh the sun’s upon my face; push, pull…’ Then the person sitting behind (or in front) gets affected and there’s a long chain of events. The passenger then gets down to the exercise of tilting the recliner back and forth till his back has found that sweet spot, the process which gives more grief to the person sitting behind. There’s the airconditioning vent to content. The jet shouldn’t be directed on to the face or the legs or whereever. Then the person next to our passenger starts snoring away to glory. On this three hour journey there’s no way he can fall asleep now. Our hero picks up a magazine to read, where loud advertisements scream at him from the pages. The articles bore him, and when finally he feels sleepy the destination is here
