Where the World Began: A Reflection

When I was little, yellow school buses simply didn't exist. I'd only ever seen them on TV, full of laughing children who somehow seemed excited about the idea of going to school, and everyone knew the things you saw on TV were just make-believe.

The bus that arrived to pick me up on my very first day as a little student was olive green. 

Like everything on the military base where my family and I lived, it was the drab, sober color of my father's fatigues. The color of creeping lichen on unfriendly trees –– always a sure sign you were straying too far from home. The color of the musty mildew that sometimes grew in the basement when it got damp.

My mother had insisted school was supposed to be fun –– something I should be excited for –– but I knew better. I knew only too well that school was part of the World, and that the bus was the alien chariot that would take me there against my wishes and better judgment. 

From what I could tell, other kids were curious about the World, and they loved to talk about all the things they would one day do, be, and become out there. But I felt differently. I saw the World for what it surely was –– something huge, limitless even, and terrifying. Something unfriendly and cold that would swallow me whole and eventually make it so I'd never have anything to smile about ever again.

I didn't trust it. I didn't want to be part of it, and I didn't understand why my parents would insist on sending me out into a place like that alone, even if it were just for the day. 

........

The morning my mother walked me to the bus stop on my first day, it was overcast and chilly. I could tell she was frustrated with me again, this time because I was the only child on earth who didn't want to go to school. I knew because her lips were skinny and tight, as they always were when she was frustrated with me.

The air was eerily still and calm, as it often is just before it rains. But every now and then, a gust of wind would rush past, causing the dry leaves on the concrete to skitter and scurry for a moment before falling silent again. The morning smelled like damp pavement, cold metal, and leafless trees, a combination I normally loved. But today, its familiar harmony was overcome by something new and foreign –– the sharp, eye-watering smell of diesel exhaust.

My bulky jacket had swallowed my little arms, making it hard to move them naturally. I could feel the seams of my socks biting uncomfortably into my toes from somewhere deep within the big, bulky boots that had similarly swallowed my feet. Too many layers of thick, uncomfortable clothing –– another discomfort the World made woefully necessary.

When the olive-green bus arrived a few moments later, I realized it was where the diesel smell was coming from. It was also loud, insistent, and completely disruptive to the otherwise quiet peace of the brisk autumn morning. It pulled to an abrupt stop with a screech, and the doors flung themselves open with a predatory hiss and a loud snap.

My little feet, humming with fear underneath their heavy socks and boots, moved me forward along with the other kids at my mother's insistence. I climbed the metal stairs and stepped through the folded rubber-lined doors into the inside of the bus. 

It was a violent assault on the senses, as I somehow knew it would be. (So many things in the World were like that.) I could smell the peeling vinyl of the seats and the infernal smell of a heater turned up way too high, plus a sour scent that reminded me of old vomit. Something sweet hovered listlessly over the top of it all –– bubble gum, maybe, or sticky lollipops. Every surface rumbled and vibrated along with the bus's noisy, idling engine.

I could see immediately that the other kids inside were nothing like me. They weren't cautious, or quiet, or anxiously observant. They were loud and rambunctious, like my little brother. They couldn't sit still or stop talking, somehow perfectly comfortable with the idea of being flung out into the World all alone for the day. 

They reminded me of aliens I'd seen in a cartoon once. I could only guess at what was going on inside their heads.

Time seemed to slow to a crawl as I nervously located and claimed an empty seat next to a window, hoping the bus driver would turn the heat down. ("Why doesn't anyone else notice how hot it is in here?") I could feel my bones rattling in harmony with the vibrating seat as the last child found a seat of his own and the doors of the bus hissed shut again, sealing us all inside with the bubble gum-vinyl-vomit smell, like sardines in a can. 

I turned away from the chaos around me to gaze out the window, pressing my feverish forehead against the cool glass. The familiar sights I knew so well started to shift and fade as the bus began to move toward its mysterious destination. Our apartment building with my toys and books inside, the leafless trees, and the familiar cracks on the pavement would all be out of sight soon. 

I looked to where my mother and I had been standing only a few moments earlier, hoping to see her waving or flashing me a smile of encouragement. She was already turning away. 

* This piece was written as part of the Feast of the Wandering Pen, a month-long creative journey honoring the art of storytelling, memory, and self-expression.