We discuss Caribbean writers we both like. He is a short, thin man of about thirty. He is returning to Seattle to nurse his elderly mother, who is dying. She wants to return to their homeland, Venezuela, but they can't afford it. He corrects my bad attempt at Spanish with a laugh.
People talk, establish destinations and motives for travel.
Only rarely did I travel on silent buses during the day. After more than two days on the bus from Chicago to Seattle, the intimacy of bus travel had created familiarity and consideration, and it was with genuine sadness that I wished several people goodbye and good luck at the station in Seattle. There is something strange and thrilling about such brief friendships, a short shared experience and then farewell, knowing that one will most probably never meet these people again. And that first night in Seattle, in a stationery, proper bed for the first time in four days, I am unable to sleep, my body so accustomed to the angles and positions of bus-seat sleep, the rocking motion and engine drone. I lie in the dark and listen to the city instead.