Last Chinatown Bus of the Night

vz: 25th Aug 2005 - 23:39 GMT

spartan accomodations: "home is wherever you lay down your head to rest" (even if it is for just two hours)

you gotta know when the off-peak buses are--
sprawled across the back row, with nobody trying to step over you to get to the bathroom,
if you've pulled a couple all-nighters recently you're out cold by the time you get into jersey

when you wake up from the stops and starts of traffic in the other city, whichever one you're going to,
lying upside down, watching the upside-down cornices of buildings scroll by in the window,
you can almost imagine that you're looking down-- from the bottom side of a floating island, into a bottomless sea of sky.
Like those cheapass Bryce renders or some videogame, except for real.

but onetime I woke up in the middle of the turnpike, to a splitting headache, an acrid diesel smell, half-panicked voices,
the driver pulling onto the shoulder and RUNNING out to see what was wrong with the bus
everybody's got their horror stories
the dream i'd been having was a really vivid dream about a friend who OD'ed away a few years ago -- not a dream i have normally -- what an odd way for my brain to interpret oxygen deprivation.