Slab grabber flutter spoon1/16/2024 ![]() ![]() Past the passengers slumped, heads on their chests, mouths agape, past teenagers in hoodies who gave off the faint sound of music, wires running to their ears, eyes shut in sleep or ecstasy. Holding Mother in one hand, her purse on her shoulder, Miriam walked to the front of the bus. Oh, Mother would be so mad if she knew Miriam had taken her on the bus, on the bus with people like this. It felt like a hot brand, marking her out. Miriam felt the soft stone of the woman’s knees on the side of her thigh as she passed. The woman shifted imperceptibly to one side to let Miriam through. She pulled it out and with a quiet “excuse me” squeezed past the woman next to her. Should she take Mother with her or not? The bag was tucked neatly under the seat, but Miriam decided she couldn’t trust anyone. Miriam didn’t want to get off the bus and go into the cold night, she didn’t want to push past her mountainous seatmate, but there was no way she was using the bathroom on the bus, despite her earlier sense of adventure. The coffee shop was not a Starbucks, or Tim Hortons, it was called Get A Cup N’Go. A few dark shapes huddled under the outside overhang, the red tips of their cigarettes glowing like little animal eyes. There was a coffee shop and ticket counter. The bus station here in Hartsville’s long dead downtown core looked frozen sometime in the 1950s. The bus pulled into its first stop, a small city called Hartsville that Miriam never heard of before. Uncomfortable, her stomach recoiling in a nauseous heave from the bus’s rubber tinged perfume of unwashed bodies and overripe apples, Miriam stared out the window wondering what it was like to be dead, trying to avoid the greasy smudge on the glass where someone on an earlier trip rested their head. Miriam’s legs were cramped from folding them in positions that would not disturb her mother. ![]() She had not said one word to Miriam since the bus started off, but Miriam could feel the heat from her like a thick blanket and hear the woman’s little snorts and rumbles as she read.Īt her feet her mother settled and shifted in the nylon duffle bag. The woman opened a magazine with a celebrity caught in an unfortunate pose on the cover. She would have liked to keep it on the seat beside her, but of course, a woman with great buttresses of flesh for arms and hair so thin her scalp shined pinkly through immediately sat down next to Miriam. The funeral home’s bronze canister was nestled snug in the duffle bag at Miriam’s feet. Mother had no say in the matter now, and although Miriam wasn’t big on bus travel herself, it gave her an adventuresome frisson to be doing something in such bad taste. It was often hard to follow her dictates the safest route was to just not say anything or do anything unless directed. She had specific prejudices-the train yes, the bus no, taking The Lord’s name in vain, no, calling someone an asshole, yes.
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