on a bus bound for nowhere

Have you ever been on an ordinary bus (kamikaze bus of doom) between the hours of 10pm to 6am? I have, the most recent of these death trips was late last night. It’s a rush really, unlike trips in the morning when EDSA is quite effectively choked with a bunch of noisy, smelly, and slow moving herd animals. Late night bus trips are different; in fact, they are oddly life affirming.

Fun fact: I used to spend 4 hours a day in buses on the commute to and from work. 4 hours x 5 days a week = 20 hours a week x 4 weeks x 12 months = 960 hours a year. Spent in a bus. To put that in better perspective, 960 hours is 40 days. (The sad part is, one would assume that I live in Silang, Cavite and work in Makati to endure this slow and torturous commute. During this period, I lived in Las Pinas and worked in Makati.)

Anyway, the first challenge lies in catching a bus. At times, I’ve felt like a prehistoric hunter chasing a bald wooly mammoth in heat. There are times when everybody rushes full tilt at the still moving bus, their arms flailing wildly, shoving and pushing and stuffing each other into public transport. Late at night, there is none of these crazy Law of Physics (specifically the one that says only one body can occupy one space at one time) defying high jinks so I only need to hail a bus to catch it. Sometimes one has to do this in a lonely, deserted stretch of highway, but that is fine as long as the bus driver can see you in aforementioned lonely, deserted stretch and is alert enough to step on the brakes. Stopping from a speed of 120kph may be a challenge, so try not to get in the way.

Next, you have to find yourself a suitable seat, preferably somewhere with no weird stuff on the seat, floor or handrails. This is important. In the event that the bus screeches to a halt to let passengers alight or get on, takes a curve at mind numbing speeds, or just bounces jauntily on some half-finished roadwork or a patch that needs roadwork, you will need to grab on to the nearest stationary object or risk being a victim of Inertia.

So anyway, hold on. That is also important. EDSA and SLEX’s wide open lanes in the crazy hours of non-rush hour pushes drivers so far into their inner daredevils that they are flung back into reliving their past lives as kamikaze pilots. They will take the curves at speeds in excess of 50 and will take straight stretches at 120. I have been on many of such trips and so my innards know how it is to be regularly put in an osterizer of having-to-contemplate-untimely-and-ghastly-death.

Then it’s finally time for you to get off the bus, and you do this with mildly trembling knees. You get a rush of being grateful for being alive and not a casualty in the evening news report of a nightmare bus collision and you get an epiphany of how bus rides at 12am have not only become familiar to you but it basically describes your life at the moment. You’re always busy, always rushing toward something, and always seemingly close to careening out of control.