Running Away to Bhutan

The bus rattled along its morning route. The summer sun was already scorching, city streets hot as a frying pan.

Besides the interminable heatwave, the downtown, in summer, at least to ___, had always felt hotter. Something about being bordered by towering office buildings, skyscrapers trapping in, intensifying the heat.

The city bus jerked, then hung a left toward a busier intersection. Then the bus rattled again, axles squeaking... The bus's a/c straining, hissing in fits and stops...

___ crinkled his nose and scoffed at the spicy body odor stuck to his neighboring passenger. Silently, ___ pressed his eyes shut and wished he had superhero powers. That he could end the never-ending heatwave. Snap his fingers and set the city's temperature back to a perfect spring day... Or that he could at least make everyone else in the crowded bus just disappear...

Except for her of course. His secret crush. The petite blond in the aisle seat a few rows up. He'd been watching her for the last two months. But, lamentably, as usual, he lacked the courage to do anything about it.

In his mind, he envisioned being a "Chad," confidently strutting up to her with the perfect pickup line. And he meant to do this. Several times. But just as he'd get the impulse, his throat would constrict, his tongue turning to sandpaper, his heart fluttering. Then he'd shrink, sink silently back into his bus seat, unable to rise... Again a prisoner to his perpetual paralysis of fear...

So he kept his head down. Literally. Like most everyone else, he remained attached to his phone, scrolling social media...

The bus's a/c was getting loud as a lawnmower. Whilst lessening the heat, it was feckless against the humidity, and a fat bead of cold sweat trickled down the small of ___'s back as he struggled to shift his weight in his hard, narrow bus seat.

Then the bus shook again, harder, rocking the passengers back and forth, almost like a roller coaster. This bus route had several potholes. And today they seemed worse than ever. Steadying himself in his seat, ___ felt a stab of queasiness, then a rush of blood went straight to his head.

On IG, scrolling through so many perfect pictures, ___ wondered if IG influencers ever rode buses. He'd never seen an influencer in person and wondered if they really were their pictures... And he wondered what they looked like without make-up and beauty filters... Or if the influencers were just as fake as politics and professional wrestling... Or if the influencers were just AI, bots designed for the algorithms and imitations... If they even existed...

"Phones are like us, they get old and they die," he could hear an elderly woman, a nun, saying to the young man seated beside her. The young man, in a black Raiders stocking cap, sat grimacing and shaking his phone violently.

The queasiness passed and ___ felt slightly better as he lifted his head up a notch to steal another glance... at her...

The blond entered his thoughts, daily, several times.

During the day he tried to guess everything about her. The sound of her voice... Her favorite food, favorite movie, favorite song, favorite season of the year... He'd see her tying her curly blond locks into a ponytail with the same baby blue scrunchies, so he imagined baby blue to be her favorite color...

At night, he'd fantasize about lying with her in a bed the size of a room. The two kissing and spooning. His hands cupping her upthrust breasts. Then his hands running down, to the warmth of her waist, over her hips. Then his hands hovering down, further, to her...

Then other times she'd enter his dreams. Her unclothed body bathed in an iridescent glow that swirled around her form like fog. And she'd follow and float over him, like an angel, close enough to see but too far to touch...

God, there were so many things he wanted to ask her and tell her. So many things. She just had these huge, electric blue eyes that were illuminated by everything he couldn't summon the courage to say.

Only two days ago, they'd sat next to each other. And he could smell the fruity scent of her shampoo. His knee had even lightly brushed up against her knee during the ride, and the friction had caused a jolt of electricity to surge through his body, made the hairs on the back of his neck prickle, gave him goosebumps.

That whole 20-minute ride, feeling her body heat next to him... had his thoughts racing, his heart leaping like a rabbit...

That whole 20-minute bus ride, he sweated. Clenched his balled fists. Ground his teeth... To ___, it was as if they were passengers aboard a small plane, flying through a violent thunderstorm.

Sitting beside her, that whole tortuous 20 minutes, he felt feckless. Trapped under ice. He wanted so badly to talk to her. He replayed all their imaginary conversations. He envisioned a hundred different things to say.

The recent heatwave, anything weather, that popular new show about autistic gay vampires. There were a thousand ways to break the ice.

But when the blond reached her stop, his dream girl lifted to her feet and slid by him, without any eye contact. And he just sat in his narrow bus seat with his lips in a tight line, his head hung low, his face to his phone.

Once again, he'd said nothing.

As usual, ____ watched the blond step off the bus at the stop before his. He knew she worked at the dentist's office with that tacky neon logo on its storefront.

____'d thought of going there for a tooth cleaning just to have an excuse to talk to her. But that would be too stalker-ish, he thought. She'd know he was the guy from the bus.

Then he thought of doing the "secret admirer" thing. Sending a big bouquet of flowers, along with a poem, to the blond's work. But he lamented that that would be even more stalker-ish...

Finally, the creaky old city bus arrived at ____'s stop. Through the grimy bus window, he glanced up at his office building. The colossal building, from afar, looked like a big silver fist thrust up at the blue sky.

A V of white swans was flying toward the egg-shaped lake in front of the office complex. The lake looked shallow and sickly and was bearded by unnaturally neon algae. ___ wasn't sure if the lake was real or manmade. And he couldn't understand why the swans were flocking there but he envied their freedom, ability to fly wherever, whenever.

Perhaps that'd be the superpower he'd choose. The ability to fly. ___ pondered that that could be even better than controlling the weather or making people disappear. The ability, the strength to lift into the air and soar, to fly whenever, wherever, like a swan...

Stepping off the bus was like walking into a wall of hot air. The strong sun setting upon him, with its wide orange crush...

His loafers heavy with heat, he padded forward, perspiring in the coiling cotton prison of his work attire. His every sweat gland screaming open. Then he shaded his eyes as a cloud of dust rose in the road ahead, whirling in the summer haze before it melted into shadows.

Then he let his arms hang at his sides, like broken wings. His dress shirt and slacks suddenly slicked. His reddening face wet with sweat.

Through the humidity he lurched and trudged on, walking at a faster pace than he should, shuffling toward another bus stop. This one for a shuttle up the hill, up to the silver fist. Then ___ stopped and stood under the misty shade of the bus stop canopy, hiding himself from the wrath of the buttery sun.

Then ___ thought more about the blond. How he might be in love with her. But he didn't even know her name. Was that possible? he wondered. Love at first sight?

Maybe it was. Maybe she was his soulmate. The person he should die with... He pictured them on an exotic honeymoon together. Somewhere thousands of miles away. Somewhere cold, snowy and mountainous. Somewhere where no one could ever find them. Somewhere in the Himalayas. Somewhere... Somewhere like Bhutan...

The ugly heat, stifling, even in the canopy's shade, caused his skin to flush and creep and heavier beads of sweat broke out over his arms. Bigger beads of sweat then glistened, streaked down his forehead like raindrops along a window.

Lifting his gaze, he gaped at his reflection in the bus stop's canopy. He was clean-shaven. His complexion was pinkish but clear, albeit slightly weathered. There was a childish, babyface charm to his dimples. Puffing his chest out, his whole spirit was possessed with a determination to do better, to be better, to take the initiative... to be a winner...

Then he compared himself to the others in the bus line, wishing he were at least a head taller than everyone else...

Maybe instead of flying, the power to instantly grow tall, tall as an NBA basketball player, or even taller than an office building, that might be the superpower he'd choose.

He pictured himself and the blond, both tall as the Eifel Tower. He and the blond quitting their jobs. The two trampling over this godforsaken, furnace-hot city. He and the blond, trashing the city like a rock star wrecks a hotel room.

Him and the blond... kicking over office buildings, kicking the silver fist like a football... Him and the blond throwing skyscrapers like a petulant kid throws toys...

Him and the blond moving mountains... Him and the blond, running hand in hand... Him and the blond so tall they clear thousands of miles with each stride... Him and the blond on their way to a honeymoon in Bhutan.