chamber of secrets

Events Editor Isabel Sepúlveda didn’t think it was possible she could ever relate to Odysseus, who takes a spot in her top 5 least favorite Lit Hum characters. After a disastrous bus trip back from break, she at very least understands him a lot better now. 

Tell me, Muse, of the trip of many ways, and the girl that was driven

for nearly 15 hours, after the Greyhound company updated their online system and didn’t tell her why her e-Ticket disappeared until she was put on hold for 10 minutes.

Boring was the Pennsylvania countryside she saw, whose minds she didn’t learn of because she was minding her own business,

many the pains she suffered in her spirit on the wide pot-hole riddled interstate,

struggling for her own sanity and the homecoming of her companions.

Even so, none could not save her fellow passenger, hard though

they strove to; he was devoured by his own drunk belligerence,

an imbecile, who imbibed the forbidden alcohol (and was possibly smoking in the bathroom),

and he took away the punctuality of their homecoming.

From some point here, goddess, patron of vaguely sub-par bus service, speak, and begin our story.

Then all the other students, as many as fled the devastation of impending finals, were on campus now, having escaped the snowstorm and the delays.

This one alone, longing for her shitty dorm bed and her homecoming,

was detained by some random guy, who thought it would be a good idea to scream expletives in the bathroom,

in a smelly east-bound bus, desiring that he should be a nuisance to everyone on board, including a small child with a cold.

But when in the circling of the tires came in the time the company had designated

for a rest stop, not even then was she free of his terror

And all the passengers hated him

except the driver, because he just wanted to get everyone back on time.

But even he got fed up with this man cursing at him,

and pulled into some random truck stop to kick him off.

Overnight Greyhound bus passengers, the most uncaring of people,

who live divided by headphones and sleepiness

were bounded together by hatred of having to sit for an hour

waiting for the state troopers to come because you can’t just leave him by the side of the road.

There aren’t many good options, honestly.

The tired passengers bond in their time of pain and exasperation

glad they are no longer being screamed at and around.

The student almost wished her ticket had remained disappeared as they finally pulled away,

Megabus, the double-decker wonder, would never do this to her.

Cheers as they pull back onto the asphalt river,

they speed toward the lights of the city.

Somehow, they are only half an hour late pulling into Times Square,

and she rejoices. The 1 train is of course, fucked up as always.

This is expected. This is comforting. She is home.

Photo via Public Domain Pictures