The Writer’s Corner features poetry, essays, short stories, satire and various fiction and non-fiction from SCAD Atlanta students. To submit your own work for the Writer’s Corner, email features@scadconnector.com.
A Trip on a Bus by Elizabeth Henry
“No Matter the year, No Matter the moment. Atlanta United.”
These words greet me on the grey, cloudy, and damp Saturday morning as I walk up to the bus stop. The words are a great sentiment but feel like an empty promise as I dig around in my bag for the $2.50 fare.
The few people that have either willingly chosen or financially forced to brave the wet weekend morning sit sprinkled around the bus silently pretending none of the other passengers exist. Eyes skirt one another meeting briefly before denying any prior contact seemingly afraid that the tiniest connection may require conversation. Headphones and small electronic screens are our protection—a wall of isolation from those who travel with us.
A disembodied voice warns against harming MARTA employees and urges us to release the prized seats at the front of the bus in the event someone steps onto the bus in more need of the blue plastic seats. The message is clear. Your abled body does not belong here.
The bus empties and refills with new strangers at the end of the line. New passengers. Same situation.
Rubber soles on slick floors. Mechanical whirling fans circulate germ-filled air. The lingering scent of breakfast and wet hair is faint but still present. The bus rocks and jostles its passengers as it travels over mostly paved solid roads.
We call this public transportation. But it is no more public than riding in a car alone, surrounded by 5 o’clock Atlanta rush hour. Hundreds of people on all sides connected only by the single desire to reach their destinations.
However, everything changes when a camera is taken out. The magic spell of isolation cast by unwritten social rules dissolves.
“Do you have an Instagram?” Information is exchanged to share and connect beyond the metal and fiberglass in the universe of zeros and ones and anonymous likes and comments.
“Are your pictures black and white?” The love for the truth and beauty reflected in black and white photographs is shared.
“Do you know about the Catholic church built by a priest downtown? You should put that in your book.” An uninvited but appreciated history lesson is given between stops.
Somehow a box of metal and glass and buttons and electronics encourages and invites conversation and impromptu photoshoots. The camera has transformed its wielder from passenger to something greater and worthy of connection.
When the bus finishes its circuit and returns to the words ‘No Matter the year, No Matter the moment. Atlanta United’ they don’t feel quite as empty anymore.
