Standing At The Station.

Snapshot.

I shake my dad's hand, he walks away to head back home. I to New York City. Not first in line, instead about 15th or maybe 10th in line. I try to keep cool about things, act natural, but I fumble. I am clearly new to this. For one, I'm exhibiting nervous habits. I chew my nails, I tap my feet. I'm nervous. I want to board and evaporate into my bus seat. For another, I'm not attached to my phone as everyone else is. Everyone is attached to their phones. I would soon be guilty of that, logging over 100 texts to various people during my 4 hour bus ride down to the city. For the moment though, I have nothing out, leaving observation as my only source of entertainment to pass the time until the Megabus at Dock 12 boards at 11:00 AM.

My eyes glance from the guy behind me, who I assume is a bitter man until he breaks out his phone and starts speaking lovingly to his wife, to someone ahead of me. Some snarky businessman in the process of taking several overconfident bites out of his apple. The guy at the front of the line is talking to a Chinese counterpart in simplified English, as she responds steadily with fractured fluency. At the dock adjacent to ours, dock 11 bound for Taunton, there are but two people in line, 1/12.5th of the people currently in my line. The two future occupants of this lonely bus are a mother and her son. Her son, probably 5 or 6, sports spiky hair. The mother sports anger. She chastises her son for the littlest things, and all I can think is that that child will grow up to be angry. I was witnessing the breeding of an enraged spirit. I could feel it. It hurt.

Everyone in line is wired. Everyone in line is connected. Everyone has something in their ear, everyone has something at their fingertips. And, with nothing attached to me other than the backpack that's causing my shoulders to slope from the uneven weight, I start to feel as though I am a social anomaly. Or at least a technological one. I'm always connected to the Internet or to some type of screen, but these people seem to lack control of it. Maybe I just haven't experienced enough incessant connectivity yet to be one with them. Maybe I'm not ready to take a journey of this caliber yet. Maybe I'm not dependent/independent enough. Maybe I haven't lived/unlived enough. And do I know?

Maybe the city will answer.

~-~