Bus 143
Today, a curse fell upon me.
Every time I stepped into a bus, something bad happened. Okay not THAT bad, but still worse than usual.
This morning. It was like fate when my mum told me to walk to the other bus stop which was closer to the bus interchange even though my usual bus stop and that bus stop were of equal distance from my house. Why? Because I missed bus 10, the always nice, cosy, empty bus 10.
No. I had to board bus 143, the stinkiest, gross-est, most crowded, most uncomfortable bus is the history of SBS transport (You see this, Land Transport Authority?). It’s always stuffed with a gazillion people, and 90% of the are the elderly. I’m not discriminating the elderly, but something about a bus full of them makes it eery and depressing. It’s the sad bus, I should say.
So today, it was crowded, as usual. As I was standing, an elderly man sitting on one of the seats tapped my arm and asked, “Xiao jie, ji dian ah?” (Girl, what time is it?)
“8.10am”
“Xie xie.” (thank you)
3 seconds later, the bus is passing by Haw Par Villa.
“Xiao jie… [mumbles some inaudible crap]… Hen piao liang, wo gen ni yi qi zai Haw Par Villa pai zhao ba. [Mumble more inaudible crap]”
(Girl… [mumbles some inaudible crap]… Very pretty, you and me take picture together at Haw Par Villa? [mumble more inaudible crap])
I was thinking, “Oh fuck.”
“Xiao jie… [inaudible crap]… Xia ge nian xing nian de shi hou wo gen ni qu Haw Par Villa ba. Na bien hen piao liang de”
(Girl, we meet at Haw Par Villa next year on Chinese New Year k? Haw Par Villa is a pretty place.)
I was so fucking scared. Plus, there was no where to move because that stupid 143 bus is always so bloody full. And here was this crazy man tapping my arm every 2 seconds to get my attention and saying creepy shit.
So he kept on going about how nice Haw Par Villa looked and a bunch of other crazy shit, I couldn’t really hear him.
Whenever I think of scenarios like these in my mind, I would always say to myself, “Yeah Julia, you’d totally kick his ass or slap him or something. Crazy guys? Just ignore lah. Yeah man, I’m woman, hear me roar!”
When that happened on the bus today, I nearly cried.
Damn you, Julia. You and your independent woman nonsense.
Today I realized that thinking it and actually experiencing it are two totally different things. When I told my friends this story, it was really funny. But when you’re actually there, you’re so alone and helpless and trapped by this crazy dude, it’s seriously not funny. It’s fucking scary.
Plus, everyone saw what the crazy dude was doing and how I was about to burst into tears, but they just went on staring and watching. Some girl even gave me these annoying knowing looks, like, “Geez, what a baby.” Yeah, whatever sister, just wait till you get harassed by a crazy person one day. JUST WAIT.
Eventually a man helped me out and stood between Mr Crazy and me, so Mr Crazy stopped tapping my arm and talking to me. Thank you, whoever you are.
That was on the way to school.
On the way back, nothing too bad happened except I tripped on the stairs up to the upper deck and there was this cheena secondary school couple making out like rabbits at the back of the bus.
Bus 143. The cursed bus.