| She smiles back at the bus driver because he looks familiar. Sometimes living in a small city is good, she thinks, because then you can almost pretend you know people even if you don't. |
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| She sits alone in the seat closest to the back door. It's close enough to an exit to get out quickly if the bus gets crowded, and far enough away from the bus driver to prevent conversation. She watches the streets go by as the bus moves steadily towards home. It isn't really home, but it's where she lives. Home is a place that you can feel safe, where you can relax, where you find comfort. She doesn't have a home anymore. |
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| The bus stops to let two women board. She watches them behind her sunglasses. One is blonde and robust, with healthy pink cheeks and a broad smile. The other is petite with a mousy ponytail and little wire-rimmed glasses that look like they were made for a child. Both women are laughing and talking, pointing out the window and touching each other's arms when they are excited. Neither of these women could be younger than thirty-five, and yet they giggled like schoolgirls. She smiled and wondered if they were in love, or if they just liked each other so much they couldn't help but show it. |
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| She looked out the window again and lost her thoughts into the hypnosis of moving traffic. She felt as if she could sit on this bus for a long, long time. She wished for a minute that she could get on a bus going further than home, just to ride and ride and ride until she felt like she could stop and join the world again. She wondered if she would come back if she did that. |
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| She shook her head and realized that she had almost missed her stop. She rang the bell and stood up, smoothing the sweater she kept tied around her waist just in case it turned cold. When the bus stopped, she waved her hand in front of the motion-sensitive door until it opened. She always felt a little like a magician doing that, waving her magic wand to open a secret passage. |
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| Her feet hit the sidewalk with more impact than she predicted; she constantly misjudged the length and position of her limbs even though they had been the same for more than fifteen years. She pictured herself falling face first into the concrete, smashing her nose and driving her broken sunglasses into her eyes. She shook her head and reminded herself that this did not happen and will not happen. She hated thinking about things like that, but she could never seem to help it. A dozen times a day she watched her own death or dismemberment: she plugged in the toaster and was instantly electrocuted, she miscounted the steps and fell to her death, she didn't see an oncoming car and was crushed under its wheels. These things never happened, but she expected them constantly. |
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| She frowned and crossed the street, angry at her own imagination, angry at being afraid of everything. She watched her feet as she walked, listening to one inner voice counting the number of steps it takes to get home and another singing a song she couldn't remember hearing before. |
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| Two men watched her from the steps of a greasy diner. She pretended she didn't notice and walked faster. One hundred sixty-seven, one hundred sixty-eight, one hundred sixty-nine.... |
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| "Hey sugar. You sure is fine lookin today. Hmm-mmm." |
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| She walked faster and pretended to be deaf. She wished she had a walkman on. |
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| "Where you goin in such a hurry? Damn, girl." Laughter. |
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| The lump in her throat grew until she thought it would choke her. She bit her tongue and tried to remember to breathe through her nose, slowly and deliberately. The voice counted the number of times she exhaled. One, two, three, four... |
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| She was pushed up against a wall, her pants around her ankles. Her face scraped against the peeling paint. She tried not to think of the blood she knew was tricking down her thigh. She prayed for it to be over quickly, but it never was. She prayed that nobody would see her like this and thanked god that it was dark. She tried not to faint, but the booze and the pills were making her feel dizzy and sick and it was hard to stand up. He pushed his forearm into the back of her neck so she couldn't slide down the wall. |
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| She shook her head. It's not happening now, she thought, just like I am not going to fall and break my face on the sidewalk. It was a long long time ago and it's not happening right now. She walked so fast she almost ran. Her hands shook as she tried to get her key into the lock. She locked the door behind her and ran to the bathroom. She knelt before the toilet and gagged. She wished she had eaten lunch, because dry heaves hurt her throat more than vomit. |
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| She sat on the bathroom floor until she was too cold to stay there any longer. She got up, went to the kitchen, and made a cup of lemon tea. She sat in front of her computer to write a story and wondered what to say. |
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I'm full of good intentions
Like I never was before
It's too late for prevention
But I don't think it's too late for the cure
So you call in your minions
And see what you can find
Night time or morning
These hands are sticky but I don't mind
Why must you always be around?
Why can't you just leave it be?
It's done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive
I never said I was tough
That was everyone else
So you're a fool to attack me
For the image that you built yourself
Just sounds more vicious
Than I actually mean
I really am soft
Yes, I'm tender and sweet
Why must you always be around?
Why can't you just leave it be?
You've done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive
Why must you always ask me?
Why can't you just leave me be?
You've done nothing so far but destroy my life
You cause as much sorrow dead
As you did when you were alive
- You Cause As Much Sorrow, Sineaad O'Connor
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