So when I arrived at my bus stop this evening, there were a few people already waiting. I noticed a woman looking curiously back at the bus shelter. When I got closer, I saw why. Sitting on the bench was this young man, leaning forward with his eyes closed. He looked to be in a deep sleep.
I assumed this person was also waiting for the bus. As I stood by the shelter, another bus roared by the stop. The sleeping gentleman did not even flinch a bit. Just a few minutes later, my bus turned the corner and pulled up to the stop, right in front of Van Winkle. There was the usual noise of people gathering things, the bus doors opening, and people boarding the bus. With all of this around him, the guy remained slumped over in the shelter.
As I sat down and pulled out my knitting from my bag, the bus driver yelled back at us and asked if the guy on the bench was asleep. One woman yelled back that she thought so. The driver gave the guy another look, closed the doors, and took off.
At the hour we left, there was only one route servicing that stop and it was my bus. Dude missed the bus. I can tell you he wasn’t homeless either. His clothes were too trendy and clean for that. He also had a shopping bag next to him. It wasn’t a recycled one that had all his earthly possessions in it. It looked like a brand new bag from a store he had just visited today.
The one simple question that remains is, was this person actually dead when I arrived at the bus stop? Perhaps we’ll never know… or I could just watch the news tomorrow.