She listened to the rhythmic thumping of the Greyhound wheels over the roadway. She used to like buses, when she was younger, being able to see so much of someplace from the anonymity of the high tinted windows, but now she itched for the trip to end. The black plastic stuck to the back of her legs, and her fingers kept finding their way to a wad of gum on the seat. Mumbling a general sentiment of disgust none too quietly, she shifted her focus to the motley assortment of people surrounding her, hoping to find something in their almost-intelligible arguments and tired faces to amuse her. She found nothing of interest, and turned her gaze back outside.
        An old man, exuding an old-man odor, leaned across the seats. �Excuse me, miss,� he wheezed. �Do you have the time?�         �No,� she answered, annoyed, hiding her wrist behind her leg. She scooted closer to the window and yanked her backpack onto the seat beside her to avoid the possibility of a seatmate. Its contents spilled slightly out, and she rummaged through them looking for something to distract herself. Finally she pulled a novel out of her backpack and opened it to a random page, but couldn�t focus on the words to make sense of what she was reading. She sighed, leaning her head against the window, willing the wheels to turn faster. Gray letters were scarred into the back of the seat in front of her � �A.H. + T.M.� Idly she traced her finger over the scratchmarks, and wondered where A.H. and T.M. were today. Probably 32 years old with no recollection of each other, she guessed, or else married and miserable.
        The bus screeched to a halt at a street corner, flinging her backpack to the floor, and the doors screeched open. Before she could retrieve her backpack from where it had landed under the seats and return it to its place, a middle-aged woman plopped into the seat beside her in a cloud of perfume.
        �Hello, young lady!� the woman squawked. She cringed inwardly and mumbled a response, turning her face to the window and re-arming herself with her book. �And where are you off to?� She shrugged, keeping her eyes focused on the ink. She could feel the woman�s eyes on her for a few moments more, then relaxed when she heard the sound of a newspaper opening beside her.
        Stretching awkwardly, she could feel small pools of sweat forming behind her knees, and her thin shirt was sticking to her back. She pulled the window down, wrinkling her nose at the film of dirt coating the glass. The wind blew cool on her face, easing the oppressive heat of the mid-afternoon sun beating in and the hot air rising from underneath the floor. Next to her the woman wrestled with her newspaper as the wind tried to free the pages from her hands. Finally the woman turned to her. �I�m sorry, but could you please put the window up partway? It�s blowing my paper away.�
        She exhaled loudly and rolled her eyes skyward before pushing the window a few inches up. Resigning herself to discomfort for the rest of the trip, she propped her knees against the seat in front of her and tried to sleep.