You pull a handful of change from your pocket, count out the proper amount, and feed it into the ticket machine, producing a clanking jingle from within the contraption. You turn and stumble-clunk your way down the aisle. Luckily, there are empty seats, and you slide into one, casting a glance at the miserable lot about you. A one toothed black woman smacks her gums on the other side of the aisle, while an old white man, his face not unlike a prune left in the sun twice too long, rustles through the brown paper bag at his feet, searching but never finding. A disheveled couple, their dirty children on their laps, stare out the window at the dilapidated houses and sooty storefronts rolling by, while their children examine their boogers.
People get on, people get off, all in differing states of disrepair.
You begin to notice that among all the different people you're seeing, the eyes remain the same. All of their eyes have the same empty, vacuous stare, the eyes of the dead. Glassy eyes, staring at nothing. And eventually, you too, end up staring out the window, or at the back of the seat in front of you, or searching for nothing, just to do something. Finally, you arrive at school.