Slice of Life
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Slice of Life 〰️
Yes, as a girl night time is usually the danger zone. And because we have to focus on keeping ourselves safe, we never really appreciate how peaceful it is.
About two weeks ago, my dog gave me quite the fright. Constant gagging like he had something stuck in his throat, ended up having to go to the emergency vet in the middle of the night. By the time we were done, it was around 2 in the morning. The vet was, to be frank, in quite an isolated area. I tried to get an UberPet home, it would have just taken 20 minutes, except I kept having driver accept it, wait, and then see them cancel it and the app search for someone else. After the third driver, I cancelled the order, and my dog and I marched towards the bus stop for a 2 hours journey in the middle of the night.
3 buses across London.
Believe it or not, after all that stress, it was exactly what I needed.
The bus was empty, calm, the neon lights didn’t feel agressive for once. It gave it something eerie, but not worrysome eerie, more out-of-this-world eerie. Like the bus was its own little bubble and my dog and I were just watcher of the world, not participant.
During that trip, I saw pass by multiple places that I had forgotten about, and was taken onto a journey through my own life. The late-night groceries at the Tesco Express during my first year in London, the roundabout where I met up with a date—which ended up being awful—, the fancy restaurant where I took a picture of the most beautiful elderly pair of friends I had ever witnessed, the unknown train station where I had been stranded after there were issues with a train, the bridge I crossed during a treasure hunt at a ren fair, the Little Free Library in which I left my book, so on and so forth.
I don’t think there is anything that can quite define how you feel when you witness events of your life in a night setting accompanied by the music in your ears.
It made me think of the only two other times I had ever taken a night bus.
The first was to escape New Year in London with my best friend who had visited me. None of us knew the show was a private thing you had to pay for and all the roads would be closed. Where we come from, the town throws a few fireworks at different location and all you need is to find a place to sit on the beach.
We laughed so much that evening, we went to the upstairs right in front of the big windows and chatted about everything and nothing. No one else was in there. When we got home, we realised a lot of my neighbours were throwing their own fireworks, so we just sat on the sidewalk and looked at those. Probably the best New Year I’ve ever had.
The second time was also with that friend, but when I went with her to her train so that she’d go to the airport. Lots of laughter on the way, and a bittersweet smile when it was time to say goodbye.
I was sad when I left. But just like a few weeks ago, getting back on the night bus put an end to my troubles. I was no longer missing a friend, I was simply a watcher existing withing a bubble. Under a spell that would only last until the first rays of dawn.
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