Involuntary removal from the driving population puts this corpse back on the bus for a few days. Exhausted midnight riders of all stripes, white and blue and no collar, stinking of late shifts and clothes worn for weeks on end. Cell phones clamped to heads in doo-rags, low sweetnesses or impending plans muttered to distant someones, though not all the souls with voices direct them across the ether: some folks talk to the invisibles, others bombard the driver with tales of conquered chicken fried steaks or exegeses on the bus schedule. Most don't talk, too beat by their jobs or themselves to waste the energy, and so remain silent testaments to the horrors of labor or introspection or monthly payments to the demiurge that tells all of us, in tones seductive or bland as television, that yes, it's worth it, keep it up and the world will be yours.
I get off the bus, my soul getting paid overtime tonight, and walk into the noisy neon where we all try desperately to earn ourselves another day.
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