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Apr. 25, 2006 He saw the bus come down the street. In the night, where the cold air was, and some wind too, he also heard the bus. There is some type of a hydraulic system, or heavy duty breaking, on such a bus, that makes a particular noise. He thought that the bus looked handsome. There were no other cars around and no people either. A large passenger bus like that; new, square, blue and white, clean, was a comforting site. His time of riding buses was long over, and there was a connection to something, some thread linking up with other humans, that he missed. He could not remember exactly how it felt, but he missed it nevertheless. The bus looked so low to the ground, and was smartly lit up inside. He had pulled up beside such buses, and glancing over, seen what looked like comfortable seats with lots of space. Riding a bus at night, a person could read a book, or just look at the window, and be with one’s thoughts. Sometimes, on buses, he thought, a rider could intuit something larger than himself and the world both, something words never described, but some power, some mystery, some secret joy that came as a benediction from out of nowhere. While thinking of joy, he thought about what the priest said at church. The homily had been about joy. The priest spoke words that resonated with him. He had described joy not as happiness. He had been very definite about that. He had separated the two definitions a few times, in order to make himself very clear. He said that joy was in a way much more than happiness. He described happiness as being somewhat superficial, and without the depth that joy brought. Francis was impressed with the sermon. The priest went on to say that joy is such a different animal than happiness, that joy could be felt while confused or sad. Maybe that, Francis thought, was akin to what the poet Layton had meant by a title of an anthology called A Wild Peculiar Joy. Francis had not felt happiness in a long time. He remembered it. Sometimes, in periods of his life, where he had a purpose, and was doing well, he would wake up feeling confident, and this was happiness. Those days were fleeting though. This joy, the joy that could be felt even amidst confusion, or sadness; he had felt that from time to time. He continued to watch the bus. It stopped, and started again, and around the bend he could hear the mechanism that sounded when it started to stop again. It must have been some regulation to stop at all designated stops along certain routes. Francis hung his fingers; the three middle ones of each hand, in the silver fence links. He thought that when such metal is galvanized, it turns a certain lighter, more unreal silver. He had never actually seen the galvanizing process, but had seen the metals before and after the process. Soon his thoughts turned to the walk home, and as he started to turn around, not one but two more buses came down the street. He watched them, and wished it meant something, as a sign or omen, but knew it did not. They soon drove on and around the bend, and he began the walk home. While walking, he thought about the encroachment of what are at first towns, and then cities, upon nature. There were people who knew about the welfare of the animal life and the ecosystems, able to name species and list numbers, and problems, and theories. They saw factories and roads as a black mark on natural systems. There were others, who loved the idea of great and modern infrastructure and people. He thought that it was difficult to reconcile the fact that he liked looking at factories on the top of green valleys. He thought that the two complimented one another. He liked the picture that the black smoke made going up against the blue of the sky from smokestacks, but dare not say so to anyone. He liked the night with the cold and the angry wind that rose up, and the thousands of stars, but also the smart blue and white buses with loud breaking systems. And the sound of the train whistle, and the odd car horn both. None of these made him happy per se, but when he saw and experienced them, he did feel what he thought could be a bit of joy. ------------ Email Brian Michael Barbeito: Brian1750@Hotmail.com Comment on this article here! ------------ All articles are EXCLUSIVE to Useless-Knowledge.com and are not allowed to be posted on other websites. ARTICLE THIEVES WILL BE PROSECUTED! |
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