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I climbed onto a small, white bus, a man in a yellow shirt shouting at someone. The bus was not very old, and suitably battered. The man in the yellow shirt seemed not to notice his flying spit. He was an efficient, if aggressive conductor. His fist repeatedly banged the side of the bus, as if the harder he hit, the more pronounced his identity became. The bus lurched forward, a slender girl in spectacles jumping in at the last moment.

The narrow bars to hold on to were painted black. The bus was a little prison moving forward on a dusty bypass. The girl in spectacles stood with her back to the window, her hands gripping the black bars with fervent hope. A skinny, dark man staggered on at the first stop. He had curly hair, layered with dust, a torn blue shirt, and his bare feet sported grisly blisters. He reeked of cheap alcohol, the remnants of a collapsed night, and his torn nose glittered in stale afternoon. He held on to the door, shouting out a criticism of the recent fuel price hike. He addressed the other passengers, his unhappy audience. The girl in spectacles softly recoiled. The man banged his cheek bone against the door a couple of times, unconsoled by the hot, humid bypass air.

There is a point on the bypass, lakes on both sides, green grass painted by the wide road, a colorless sky draped tenderly over the horizon, when the bus and its passengers cease to exist. I become like a travelling speck, hurrying uncertainly towards a dying city. The conductor shouted at the drunk. He seemed to have crossed an imaginary line even drunks must avoid. An old man got up from his seat. He wore a blackened kurta and his dry feet spoke of many miles on the roads. He didn't seem all that old when he came nearer. Highway winds eat away at youth. He was perhaps the filthiest in the bus. He collected his red scarf from under the seat, where it had been collecting some new dirt, and pulled a younger woman behind him. She wore the dress of a migrant gypsy, a sleeping child in her arms, less than a year old. The man could have been her father or husband or both, depending on need. The child had patches of uncut hair, his head limp on his mother's shoulder. They smelt of broken roads and merciless drift. As the man passed me, the wind took up his red scarf and threw it at my face. For a moment, the scarf covering my face, I smelt the unwashed history of destitution. I correctly removed it. The man hadn't noticed. He got down, the woman after him, her child forever asleep.

When the hospitals arrived on the left I knew I had to get off. As I joined the throngs on the bypass, the bus began to move again. The yellow man shouted away, his fist battering the wall of the bus. The girl in spectacles seemed to concentrate on a distant spot, sweat lining her face. The bypass sighed gently, under the weight of afternoon humanity.