Tuesday, September 2, 2008

Armor Piercing Smile

It's early morning, the first day after the last long weekend of summer. The air is muggy and chilled, and winter has sent an advance scout of wind to confirm that summer is truly over, before it rushes in with all its snowy violence.

An older man boards the bus. His white hair is thinning, his bushy eyebrows and moustache are definitely not thinning, and he wears a scowl as wide as the bus as he skulks into a rear seat.

Just seeing him is enough to make me 7% more grumpy myself. He looks genuinely cheesed off at the world and life in general. He's probably close to or past retirement age, and the logo on his jacket indicates he works for a company which likely has a damn good pension plan. But for some reason he has to keep working, and he's not happy about it.

Then she boards the bus.

Although she's probably 10 years older than me, she is still quite attractive - slim, with long dark hair, high heels, leather jacket: as the expression goes, she is a knockout.

She makes a beeline for the back of the bus and as she passes the old man she tosses him a bright, girlish smile. He sees it.

And suddenly he's a new man: gone is the grump, completely. He has caught her infectious smile, and is even blushing a little bit, like a fifteen year old chess club president who just caught the eye of the star cheerleader and doesn't quite know how to process the sensations.

Even as she continues on past him, several minutes later the afterglow of her smile is still visible on his visage.

There's my stop.

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