A Korean Bus Ride
(continued…)
The girl walked in, paused near me and looked at both the rows on either side. There were two empty
seats, one of which was next to mine. She hesitated not a second and went to the other row. Why? Why
did she do that? What’s wrong with me? I looked at her again. She was indeed a good looking girl with
at least 7 layers of makeup wearing a short, very short skirt stretching taut over her waxed slender legs.
Next to her sat an ugly Korean guy in Pink trousers (yes guys have a crazy taste for their apparel colours
here). I could sense his silent grin, mocking me that the girl chose him over me. Perhaps, he might not
know that it’s not new for me to be ignored by a girl, that too a hot girl in a miniskirt and I pitied his
ignorance.
The diversion didn’t do any good, the clicks continued non-stop from behind. By then it had picked up
a rhythm in synchronous with the silent engine. Yet the rhythm was intolerable. ‘Click ……
Click…….Click……’ and it went on.
Will you please stop this for heaven’s sake? You ought to have better use with your goddamn teeth than
chewing metal pebbles.
Pebbles! Yeah, maybe he was biting some marble pebbles. I have known few of my friends in kindergarten doing this, but never in my lifetime could I appreciate it. Believe me, I tried once and it was not funny.
I looked outside. It was a warm and beautiful morning. Korean landscape is worth skipping the sleeping, though not by penance of haunting clicks from behind. I had become numb to the irritating clicks.
Thanks to his tireless effort of chewing for 40 minutes, the bus came to a stop. I got down and smiled to
him thankfully. Yes, the scriptures advise us to love our enemies don’t they? Well, I had no gun, he escaped with a smile.
I walked briskly to the station enjoying my newly attained morning freedom. I bought the ticket to
Seoul and in 20 minutes, the KTX train halted with a hiss. I had a window seat. I eagerly looked out
hoping that another hot Korean girl to occupy the adjacent empty seat. Come on girls, you can’t ditch a
poor single guy forever. But destiny has got a strange humour, guess who came and sat next to me?
Click…. Click…….Click…..
K.Hariharan