The stairs of his concepts.

They were the only two left on the bus. Everyone else had piled out as soon as the bus had pulled over at the small convenience store that leaned against the edge of the highway. A leftover smell of hot, uncomfortable passengers clouded the cabin where they no longer sat. He finished eating his melting chocolate bar and shuffled the narrow aisle to wash his hands at the back of the bus. She was sitting there, a large girl with headphones in her ears, stretched across that very last and longest row of seats. The door to the washroom was sticky and jammed at first, and he hit her with it when he finally pulled it open. He apologized to her. "It's okay," she said, but he was not sure that the girl had even heard what he said.

Inside the small, dim bus washroom, he washed his hands and looked at his face. He looked at himself in the mirror and thought about what other people must think about in the mirror. And if this is the same face that people saw when they looked at him. If they saw calm, or sadness, or interest, or wonder. Or if they saw something blank, or uninviting, or maybe abrasive. He wondered if, when people are looking in the mirror, they feel their heaving flow of moments. One telling him repeatedly how nice his teeth are. One teasing him about the holes in his socks and then offering him chocolates from a crammed pantry. If other people, when standing before themselves, might also feel their hearts constantly slowing out of a past that is so quickly shed--one that was magnified by the shared breaths of those who held it, but now deflates under only his own, and seems to have done so just moments after a departure. Just moments, maybe. Parts of one world made small, made forgotten by others'. Just moments, maybe, because those, their own, are replaced by others'. He wondered if people feel the weight of their future. If, with the unwavering and quiet observance of themselves that holds within it a curved, piercing expression, they feel their minds absolutely bursting from their skulls. If they feel anguish. A kind of agony that can not be chased. He looked at his teeth and his eyes, at the few summer freckles. He pushed hard for the sticky door to open, and it hit the girl again. He apologized, and they smiled at each other, and he went back to his seat. A few minutes later, the rest of the passengers migrated back up the bus steps in their wrinkled, stuffy clothes. As the bus pulled onto the highway, it filled with the smell of processed, powdered cheese and shrink-wrapped sandwiches.