A STUPID scum in human form stood on the aisle of the bus, no, leaned on the backrest of a seat from the aisle of the bus. It’s like this: if we are to divide a row of standing people inside a standing-room-only bus into squares of standing space, we would judge the scum’s pose that day as quite off the center of his square. This was because he leaned the bottom of his scum’s-spine on the backrest of the seat nearest to him, invading a significant---though tiny---part of the sitter's own square, not to mention the person's standing behind him, since he had to move back for his spine's bottom to reach the backrest. And we must bear in mind that the space squares made by seats inside a bus cannot follow the pattern of the squares made by people standing in same. Our scum's inarticulate rebellion, if it was a rebellion, can be traced to this squares-viewpoint, because it was as if he was stupidly demanding the standers follow the large squares distribution of the sitters' squares, a secret/dumb manifesto the conductor might not allow. Now, to prove to you that this form of laziness on the part of this scum does indeed impose a bad-day start on others, consider this picture: he leans on the backrest, the woman sitting on the seat would have to either move her whole back a little towards the seat of the person beside her, or otherwise let her back lean sideways towards the seat next to her, doing a diagonal way of sitting, or lean forward, which we can’t really consider as leaning anymore. Doing the last, the woman might settle for leaning her head on the back of the backrest of the seat in front of her, pretend to sleep perhaps. The discomfort this produces need not be discoursed upon here, because this essay's being a short story about a bus ride dictates that we keep our word and make it truly short---no one would really want to prolong such a ride if the whole ride is this unhealthy, would there be now?
    Space trouble doesn’t end here. Notice: the other woman to the window, the woman beside our earlier woman near the aisle and our scum, was also now affected, her space too shrinking in effect. And going back to the squares on the aisle, though the person in front of the scum got a bigger space by virtue of the scum’s backing a little towards the backrest, the person behind the scum had his square diminished, as we earlier mentioned, leading to complications.
    If it is hard to imagine the discomforts this produces, consider the fact that our bodies give off heat, and therefore putting more body matter into a square adds more heat into that square. Certainly the person behind the person behind the scum could always move back in his turn, and so on, but suppose that turns out to be impossible. Suppose bags are on the aisle in the last square and this last person can’t move back any further? Well, you see? The law of inertia sometimes has to stop somewhere, becoming rest, and it may be a most uncomfortable kind of rest for the affected. This discomfort, all because the laziness of the body of a working-class element on a bus threw his space around as he pleased.
    And why would such a working class element, supposedly filled with understanding for the discomforts a lack of space offers a man, why would such a man, or scum, be suddenly so inconsiderate, assuming quite generously his awareness of the inconsideration (quite generously, I say, for it is often that working class elements---whose education are as undernourished---are unaware of their own little oppressive existences upon their fellows’ spaces)? Why? Judging from the scum’s closing his eyes in abandon, even while standing, we may be led to imagine a forgivable tiredness, tiredness let’s say from some overwork within a highly inconsiderate company. And haven’t many of us sought forgiveness, at one time or another, asking to be excused, even without saying it ("excuse me," that is), during those times that we’ve felt so tired from some overtime work, or felt nausea from having had too much to drink, or felt dizzy within a pregnant stage---thus letting our space expand to steal from another’s space? Well, maybe. And moments like this, like this happening today to the few affected persons, this moment could perhaps be considered as payment for such impositions that we ourselves have dropped on the bad day hours of some people during our own moments of villainy. For it might be inferred that human beings are as actors, this time playing the role of the villain or oppressor, at another time playing the role of hero or the oppressed.
    And so it is. All a pattern within the law of living karma. So that it wouldn’t be hard to imagine our scum, then, in some future hour, an hour within the same day or the same week, getting into some misfortune as a sort of payment---his space stolen by some oppressor, be this oppressor of the upper or lower class. An extreme example, his piece of inherited shack’s lot is grabbed by one industrial or private landgrabber with clout among the keepers of lot records. Or, at least, as a less cursing example, his luxury on another bus is suddenly stolen from him by a gang of fat, loud, sweaty policemen who suddenly clambered aboard, inhabiting the spaces around our scum's seat, talking loudly, their fat bellies pouting all over like a sign of Buddhist karma within the scum's lifetime, you may say preferably within this week if you were the presently affected.
    For karma doesn’t come to one in a matter of minutes, or at least not often. For example, that day, during the same ride, though our scum saw the person behind him finally get a seat, relieved and displaying loudly his relief (because this person did express his displeasure over the scum’s spatial impositions, expressing it without saying a word), though our scum did at that moment of seeing that person seated feel some seconds’ worth of envy, his working class greed was not really to be led to some bad karma yet during that minute, or even within that ride. No. We could say it was even handsomely rewarded---by the devil, perhaps. At the next bus stop he got a seat, and what a seat! Beside the scum now sat what was probably the prettiest female in the bus (and in the whole of Quezon City) the erstwhile standing oppressed person ever saw. And our erstwhile standing oppressed person at that moment felt a minute's worth of envy towards our scum, even though he was a scum. And to a few observant passengers, this proved once again the fact that the pleasures to be derived from greed of any kind, greed by any class, are tempting enough.