I only really saw her from my left eye, the same one that swelled shut after I got punched and pushed off the city bus. How could such a thing ever happen?
It all started innocently enough. A long day at the office. A short wait at the crowded bus stop. A seat, luckily, by the door mid-bus. And at the stop after I'd gotten on, without me even taking note, she had boarded and taken a seat beside me. In post-work stupor, it took a few minutes for me to see anything. But slowly peripheral vision began working its wonders: there beside me was a petite, smartly coiffed young lady in a seriously-mini black skirt.
I held my briefcase in my lap, and had no intentions other than getting home and going for a jog with my better half. I looked out the window and inside passing cars, took interest in a suave young man sitting behind the wheel of a slick Mercedes convertible, glanced at my own reflection, checked my cellphone.
Then I sensed it: the shortness of my neighbor's skirt, the slight rubbing of our shoulders, the tinge of Givenchy or another expensive scent. My left eye scanned as best it could the figure at my side. 30s-something. Well endowed for a short person, neat in a collared white cotton top. Her hair was dark, short, cut in what I've heard referred to as a slope fringe.
Then something took me by surprise. The small tanned thighs that had been discreetly pretzeling each other opened slowly, and one was laid firmly alongside my pant leg.
This new configuration was felt more than visible to either of my eyes. I tried to ignore it and look straight ahead. In fact, I took care NOT to look. But as the bus stopped momentarily and filled with more passengers, my seat-mate seemed to move my way, even if only millimeters closer, as if she was afraid of being brushed by the rough school boys flaying past in crisp white uniforms. Her presence began to fill our seat, as if she was anticipating being inadvertently fallen onto by one of the older blue-collar ladies now clogging the aisle. In a side glance I could view a hefty one who seemed resolved at maintaining handheld-balance on the seat just in front of us, her perspiration bulging in a floor-length baju kurong.
The bus jerked back to locomotion, and my demure neighbor moved her right hand from across her lap to pull at her skirt's right edge, revealing long thin fingers and unassuming modesty. As I pretended not to observe, she also brushed the linen skirt, revealing a tinge of vanity. Then, as if to finally acknowledge my existence, she lightly tossed her fringe back to the left side with a curt head movement, inviting me to note a teardrop-shaped pearl dangling from half an inch of gold thread, and a delicate earlobe.
That's when I realized that my stop was up next. I tried to restrain other thoughts, pressing the leather briefcase against my chest. But just as I reached up to press the exit button, I stole a glance, nearly frontal, in the dear lady's direction.
Suddenly, the bus's airbrakes expired like the blow of a whale. The vehicle slowed, I stood up, smiling downward. There our eyes met, and I could see that she not only understood my want of space for passing across her presence, but sensed something deeper, more primal.
Then it whacked me, a hammering against my left temple.
Damn! As I slid into the aisle, I realized I'd been slammed by a hard fist from the seat behind!
By then the bus had fully stopped, but before I could react, before I could even see my attacker, I was drawn by the tide of bustling wide bodies to the steps, only having a momentary presence of mind to draw my wallet out of my back pocket and swipe it against the exit meter. Without any thought beyond the explosion shattering my brow ridge, I was jostled down the steps and onto the sidewalk.
There I dropped my satchel and swiped my fingers across the Vesuvian bulge centered at my left orb. My right eye unblinded, I found a swath of crimson blood, saw large droplets collide with the sidewalk, and caught one last image of the bus moving off, spewing its fumes over me and an expanding circle of bystanders.
