sonder – a bus full of main characters

A young lady in the third row of the bus balances a Tupperware container on her lap. Inside the container are two quickly made ham and cheese sandwiches. She doesn't really like ham and cheese sandwiches, but she ran out of peanut butter and jelly. It's okay, though, because the jelly might stain her navy LaFleur blazer. Her resume is folded in her bag; she tries to remember if she printed the right version, the one without the typo. The motion of the bus makes her nauseous, or maybe it's just the interview.

Across the aisle, a man stares down at his shoes. He forgot to set the alarm again. Missed the bus he meant to take. His boss will sigh, not yell – he never yells – but the breath of his disappointment will infiltrate the air, and it'll linger the rest of the day. He thinks about the stale coffee waiting in the break room. It really does taste bad. Maybe he's not cut out for this office job. Maybe he should've pursued his dream as a Foley artist.

Behind him, a college student is in a similar position. He's flipping through flashcards on Quizlet. He's not even cramming – he already knows the answers. It just makes him feel like he's doing something. What he doesn't know how to do is call his dad and admit he might not want to go into finance after all. He'd been taking some classes on animation, and now his laptop is full of half-finished storyboards he's too afraid to show anyone. He flips to the next card anyway.

Toward the back, a small boy with a big backpack is angrily thinking about lasagna. His mother burnt it yesterday, and it really set him off. He wishes he had a different mother, someone who doesn't ruin the only food he looks forward to. He vowed to her and himself that he wouldn't speak to her again until she apologized. She hasn't.

One row up, there's an old man holding a bag of birdseed. He doesn't have a bird. But he goes to the park every morning and scatters it near the bench under the elm tree. The squirrels usually get to it first, but he doesn't mind. He has names for most of the squirrels; his favorite is named Chunk because of the amusing way he eats rather large mouthfuls of birdseed instead of tiny nibbles like the rest of them. His wife died 12 years ago, and no one really talks to him anymore except the barista at the corner café. She knows he likes his coffee with two creams and one sugar and always says, "See you tomorrow, Harold." That's enough to keep him showing up.

The driver drums his fingers on the steering wheel. Same route. Same turns. Same dent in the seat cushion. He wonders what would happen if one day he just kept driving. Past the last stop. Out of the city. Through the trees. He wouldn't, of course. But the thought returns more often than it used to.

Outside, the sky is still deciding what kind of day it wants to be. Inside, everyone is still figuring out what kind of person they're going to be.

No one speaks. Each person has somewhere different to be. But they all move forward together.