Fear of Those // Ace Smith

By Ace Smith

The bus rocks us from side to side as we travel down the road. Our brains being rewarded with the time to daydream and rest. There are, of course those who chatter, their voices rising and blending together in the dark ritual of friends. Some absorb themselves in music, others drift into worries that will erase themselves on arrival, when their body rejoins the world of moving and speaking to others. I tuck myself into the cozy corner of the padded seat hugging my knees with my hoodie and cycling through songs on my MP3 player as the bus driver fiddles with the radio hoping to fill our ears with the latest country tunes. I stare out the window. As some punk song rushes to my ears. Without awareness of the road or the rain, a car moves over, closer to us, lights on full beam. I watch how the yellowed bright light played in the droplets, showing this deluge, this flood from the sky, in solitary drops. The wind pushes on the car to no avail. We are going forwards and nothing but a blessed tragedy can change that. The car gets closer so close the driver has to honk his horn to get the drivers attention he then mutters something under his breath, probably a swear. I raise the volume of my music as the back of the bus grows more restless. Unfortunately though, cheap headphones from a run down seven-eleven don’t get loud enough to cover the joking, teasing, and the lewd slurping noises of a new teen couple. That’s when she turns around; Courage Rodriguez, a name that altogether translates to, ‘the renown power of courage’, a little redundant if you ask me, but she fits it to a T. She moves her light brown braids out of the way so the cluster of boys behind her can get a good look at her bone chilling expression. I come to the conclusion that she’s either going to A: beat them up or B: throw them out the window, either way it’ll serve as entertainment.