Bus Story, Part I / by Paul Christian

Keanu Reeves is on a bus with normal-sized and sensible Tom Ford sunglasses on the front of his face. The bus is named after a thin lithe dog called a greyhound. The bus is on a road and there are cactuses next to the road. The bus is moving. The seats and people and everyone inside the bus are also moving but only moving small amounts in relation to the bus itself if they are moving at all. Keanu Reeves is sitting still in relation to the bus. Keanu Reeves does not want to be on this bus.

The driver who is driving the bus which contains Keanu Reeves has invented a name for the bus. He has named the bus Sharon, but not like his wife Sharon. The bus driver's wife, Sharon, does not like being compared to heavy machinery or thin lithe dogs. The bus driver's mother and father who shall not be named invented a name for the bus driver many years ago. They named the bus driver Francis. Francis was not a bus driver at the time of his birth. The bus has never met its parents since the time of its birth. Keanu Reeves has no knowledge of any of this despite having seen the name tags on both the bus and driver.

Keanu Reeves is seated next to a vacant seat as is almost everyone on the bus. The bus is slightly over half full and Keanu Reeves is seated about halfway back from the front of the bus. Keanu Reeves feels a sudden rush appreciation for late 1990s graphic design, specifically the late 1990s Doritos logo. He thinks about the 1990s and sighs.

Keanu Reeves looks across the aisle to the pair of blue fuzzy plastic seats with loud stripes which are sitting symmetrically across from his. These loud stripes swoop in a way that implies that they were hand-drawn. Keanu Reeves thinks that these seats were probably manufactured in the 1990s. 

Keanu Reeves looks at a man sitting in a seat across the aisle. The man sits in the seat closer to the aisle and has a large brown paper bag with a receipt stapled to it in the seat next to the window so that the items that the bag contains cannot be stolen by a person walking down the aisle. Keanu Reeves cannot see inside the brown paper bag and therefore does not know what is in the brown paper bag, and wants very much to take the bag into his own possession.

Keanu Reeves notes the curvature of the man's belly which cascades downward over a portion of his upper thighs and groin area like an oversized water balloon placed carefully on one's mantel. The man has one foot extended at an angle into the aisle because he is a man and feels he is entitled to more space even though he is currently occupying an entire pair of seats while only sitting in one of them.

Keanu Reeves looks at a bucket sitting in the man's lap and leaning against his torso's convex outcropping. The bucket is made of paper. Keanu Reeves looks at the logo on the bucket as the man who owns the bucket reaches into it, pulling out the golden thigh of a dead bird shining with rendered fat and frying oil. Keanu Reeves watches him bring it to his mouth and sink his teeth into it, ripping off bits of skin and breaded flesh with a sick wet crunch. He no longer wants to know what is in the man's bag. Keanu Reeves thinks about sharks and teeth and shark teeth and wonders when shark week is.