Bus Tales - What’s happened to you on the bus?

Now show me yours

I was heading South on Chicago Ave on the number 5E. It was a pretty full bus, but it looked like the typical crowd from the neighborhood. I was sitting near the front of bus. I needed to unwind after a long day at the office, so I began work on my Sudoku puzzle taken from the local paper. My concentration on numbers and finding the pattern tuned out the idle chatter from neighboring riders.

I felt the bus make two more stops and three more riders moved to empty seats behind me. Out of the corner of my eye I sensed one passenger take a seat across from me sharing the bench with another a middle aged woman.

The bus lurched forward and I was just a few numbers away from finishing my puzzle. My attention was immediately diverted to the seat across from me when the man mentioned his surgery. Apparently the man was just released from the hospital because he was shot the other day. He smiled and said, “Wanna see?” My eyes immediately shot over to them, and before she could answer he rolled up the bottom of his t-shirt to reveal two 4 by 6 inch gauze patches on either side of his abdomen. Given this was not the normal discourse for the bus my looks might have been reflecting a bit of confusion.

Nevertheless, the woman was not at all surprised. She scoffed and replied in a slightly obnoxious tone. “Oh yeah, I was shot last year right here in my leg,” as she rolled up her jeans to her knee to reveal two silver dollar size scars. “Eh, I didn’t bother with the hospital. I just took out my sewing kit and sewed it up myself.”

Their conversation continued as I gazed down at my puzzle, but with both ears cocked to hear the rest of it. She kept it going, “It was just an accident though. The neighbor kids didn’t mean to shoot me, they were just being kids.”

I almost didn’t notice when the bus came to my stop. I got up and gathered my coat and bag and caught a glimpse of the two before I moved past them. The man was grinning ear to ear at her.

Tale by Marcia, posted on December 12, 2008, Tagged with gauze, gun, puzzle, shoot, sudoku, surgery, wound

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