Seven minutes later, the new mother has gone from jovial to concerned to distraught. A machine is breathing for my baby. I want him to come home. In that same seven minutes, Bus 18 comes to a halt at the Central Plaza terminal. Then she steps off the bus and out of the life of someone whose name she didn't know, whose face she is not likely ever to see again, and whose touchingly personal story she would never be able to verify.
City buses are like that.
Like elevators, they take people whose paths normally would not cross and, for the briefest moment, jam them together close enough to hear each other's heartbeat. For some, it is an awkward, uncomfortable moment. Then the doors open. St. Petersburg resident Ray Flemming, left, cuddles with Keosha McGirt, his girlfriend of two years. Flemming says he rides the bus when he goes to work and when McGirt, who is pregnant, has a doctor's appointment.