Paranormal
Sometimes, a small decision you make can have a profound effect on the immediate future. I mean that in a negative way of course. It's sort of like how you may decide not to take a shower on a certain day, and you end up in jail when the National Armpit Inspection Society takes over the police force. After experiencing an attack by killer mosquitoes last night, little did I know that I'd be reprised for the role in the sequel today.
The decision I made was to take the final installment of my luggage back home, since my college days are almost over. My final installment consists of one red suitcase, and it's a very famous red suitcase back in my dorm. It's by far the biggest suitcase probably manufactured in the history of suitcases, and the writing on it mentions it has a capacity of 111 liters. That's a blatant understatement and a lie. Personally, I'm sure I could fit in the entire population of Nepal in there and transport them across the border, with space to spare for the Royal Family, along with their horses, cars and possibly a Himalayan mountain or two (and a small contingent of rebels as is obligatory).
It was a theoretically convenient plan, to catch a "Deluxe" overnight bus, and get to my house early in the morning. I got to the starting point of the "Deluxe" bus, and it arrived half an hour late. I just stood next to it with my red suitcase, waiting for the driver to come out and open the storage hatch on the back. Instead, a jittery, half-crazed orangutan jumped out of the drivers seat and started shouting incoherently, and searching all over the place for old newspapers. He was throwing curses in my direction, as if it was my fault that the residents of that city weren't considerate enough to pollute the environment by throwing newspapers on the streets. He did find one, he dampened it and started cleaning the front window of his bus. Why this person wanted to clean his front windows with an old wet newspaper escapes me completely, considering the fact that he was driving a "Deluxe" bus, which last time I checked, comes equipped with wipers. No, really, I did check.
So as I was standing there, patiently waiting for him to open up the hatch, he stopped wiping the window and started staring at me. He suddenly jumped back into the driver's seat, started up the bus, and gassed it as hard as he could. I just happened to be standing directly in front of the exhaust pipe. The bus belched out a thick plume of smoke right in my face, and in my fit of choking, out came my guts and any blood that may have accidentally been restored to my circulatory system after the mosquitoes killed me last night. I know, I'm a smoker, but this was too much. In an effort to save myself, I turned around to avoid the smoke, and whacked my face in the wall that I hadn't noticed was behind me. Now I was choking and my head hurt. I tried to make a dash away from the exhaust pipe, and stepped into a puddle full of something which looked like human filth that had been laying there since the city had been established. Due to this consecutive series of events, I decided to continue standing in the puddle, as I was not sure what would befall me if I decided to take another step.
He did eventually come around and open up the hatch where he threw my suitcase in against the wall. I got into the "Deluxe" bus, and we took off. Note that I keep using double quotes around the word "Deluxe." This is because "Deluxe" buses are never "Deluxe" buses. They're just regular buses with white paint on the outside, and covered seats on the inside. The only thing "Deluxe" here was their price, which was enough my fare to and from my home by train.
The bus stopped an hour later to pick up some more passengers, and in accordance with my luck, who else would have waddled over to the empty seat next to me but a human whale. I watched in horror as he thundered his way to me, as I silently voiced prayers to any of the gods that may actually exist, and managed to avoid getting my brain smashed against the insides of my cranium by the minor quake produced when he plopped his tub of lard next to me. The danger still remained for a minute or two as the tidal waves produced in the seas of cholestrol in his arm took a little while to subside. You may not have inferred from the description, but this guy was fat. He took up so much space, I wanted to ask him to buy two tickets so that he could actually fit in there. But I couldn't speak because I was cornered against the window with my face pressed right against it. I then knew what flies felt like when smashed with newspapers.
I was just getting accustomed to my new situation when a large collection of hair made his way over to the seat in front of me. I would have confused it for a Kodiak Bear, but it was wearing clothes. I am pretty sure, however, that this was his first time travelling in a "Deluxe" bus, because he immediately started playing with the reclining feature of the seats. The humanoid finally figured out how to pull the lever, and reclined the seat as far back as he could, so as to ensure that I would never be able to reproduce. I was now fully pinned, and I sang several praises for the son of a bitch who invented reclining seats. Reclining seats, in my highly esteemed opinion, are the cruellest invention that man has come up with. Genocide, war and famine are more appealing alternatives to reclining seats. They were not invented for relaxation, but simply to torture the person behind you. If you have a grudge against someone, go sit in the seat in front of them, and use the recline feature. Nobody can actually say anything against it, because the unwritten rules of being an asshole state that you may put your seat as far back as possible if the feature exists. This whole time, the bus driver was busy cleaning his front window with an old damp newspaper.
Getting back to my new friend, the whale companion, this behemoth also happened to be woozy as a result of being drunk, and the stench of alcohol had filled my nostrils. I remembered how sitting next to other huge people in my travels hadn't been so bad for me. Somehow, and for some reason, I always end up sitting next to huge fat men on any trip I take. Is there some sort of a cosmic law which dictates the type of sitting companion one is condemned to on trips they make?
I was just revelling in the joy of being pinned like a helpless animal, when we finally got a break and the bus stopped at a roadside cafe. For those of you who aren't aware of it, a roadside cafe's sole purpose of existence is to make you over pay for shitty food, poor service, expired packed goods and for the flies that hound you as you attempt to consume objects on your plate.
I made my way over to a refreshment stall set up there, and asked him for bottled water. I believe it was Einstein himself behind the counter, because he took out a half empty, used bottle of water with silt in it and offered it to me. I then explained to him that since it was summertime, and the weather was hot, I was thirsty and would really appreciate something colder than beaver urine. Einstein then took out a bottle of ice. I paid, I mean overpaid, for it without saying a word and resigned myself back to my seat. As I was going back, the frenzied driver had found some old newspaper and was cleaning the windshield wipers.
Mr. Whale came back, and now he was feeling sleepy. As the bus moved off again, he started nodding off to sleep. In the case of the whale man, nodding meant that his whole upper body spasmed. The end result was that I got stuck underneath his armpit, where I had to spend the rest of the trip, about 6 hours.
When the bus arrived, I managed to walk out of the bus, with my spine placed somewhere inside my right arm. My liver hasn't been seen since. When I got home, I showered twice using Hydrochloric Acid, as much as I didn't want to remove any traces of my whale friends from me.
All this, because of one red suitcase. Oh, did I mention that it was empty?
