Life on the Road

It was another 4 am arrival. Our second so far. This time it was not a park we chose to rest our wearied, travel-bumped bodies but the cement slabs of a ferry port. A bit of a degradation comfort-wise but so was the bus ride.

Economy class, they call them--buses stripped of all comforts like airconditioning, suspension, leg room, or seat springs. But even things like arm rests. Stripped of any material covering or cushion, the bolts which held together the seat to the outstretched metal bar jammed into our arms and legs with each dive the bus made into the dirt road's countless potholes. Rolled mats topped with swollen rice bags lie in the aisles imprisoning our knees to the metal back of the seat in front. Roosters in bamboo-braided bags squalked under people's feet. Dust and exhaust rode on the winds which blasted through open windows, leaving a black film on everything on the bus and collecting between our toes and along the creases on our faces. Taped Indonesian pop music screamed distorted melodies into our ears from the speakers behind. Men spit and chain-smoked. Children threw-up. Women calmly observed both.

For sixteen hours. This.

We stumbled off the bus at 4 am and entered the calm, slow stillness of a sleeping town like a war-bombed, shell-shocked people. Dark circles rimmed sunken pink eyes. Black lines ran across our foreheads and streamed from the outside corners of our eyes. Deaf, we talked in loud voices. Dumb, we were unable to form words or put them side by side meaningfully.

We threw ourselves onto our bikes, not knowing where we pedaled. Just farther. A little bit farther. We saw water and dragged our bikes through the ranking remains of yesterday's market to the ferry port where, cheeks slack against the clammy concrete slabs of the dock's floor, we crashed.

And now, a day and a sleep later, I am here, on an island in the middle of a lake where waves lap the white sand under my feet and there are planted flowers and trees. I am clean after a hot shower and rested after an oversleep on a king-sized bed. There is a glass of passion fruit juice in my hand and all of that terribly awful bus trip seems rather like a dream. Tomorrow this, too, will become part of another.