8 April 2026
Tonight I took the 345 bus on my route home from the gym. When I got on, a man cradling a warped stick that looked like a piece of driftwood was the only other passenger. He was sitting in the lower deck of the bus in the back by the engine and seemed to be talking to himself out loud while staring out the window, but I couldn't really hear what he was saying through the noise cancelling headphones I was wearing.
I sat in the top deck and kept my headphones in, but for the duration of the ride I was still aware of a continuous muffled monologue from the man below. His voice was steady, never rising above a conversational drone; it mixed with my music and time passed. Then my stop came into view, so I removed my headphones to prepare to alight and heard the man say:
“You've got water in the earth? I'm jumping in.”