contextualisation

The bell sounded, and so the red transitlink bus trundled to a stop opposite raffles town club. She barely noticed, too busy dreaming in her world. When she looked up at the traffic light, she realised that there was a bus conductor doing what all bus conductors do. Momentary panic rose in her, not so much because she hadn't paid her fare but because it was a habitual thing after one bus conductor forced her to the police when she was 14 [but that's another story]. So after reminding herself that she had paid, she took out her ezlink card and waited for the bus conductor to make her way down the aisles, staring at her in the way she always did to people. Not a concious thing, mind you, such realisation usually came only after she was thinking of things in retrospect. Really relaxing only after the bus conductor returned her the ezlink, she tried to put her card back into her purse. It wouldn't quite fit. Sometime during the reshuffling of cards and other purse.y items, she realised that there was an auntie two seats down who had turned around and was glaring at someone. It wasn't a simple glare; it was one with such intensity and anger that the woman's eyes were bluging somewhat. Her right hand was gripping the seat in front of her, and the girl tried to see if she could make out the veins in the woman's wrist. Most startling of all, the auntie was so overcom with fury that her lips had virtually disappeared. Try being in such a rage that your lips aren't simply pursed in disapproval; they're actually inside the buccal cavity. It's rather painful.

She wondered idly who that auntie was angry at. It certainly couldn't be her; she didn't know any skinny chinese aunties dressed in cotton shirts of thin pink and white horizontal strips with bluging eyes and no lips. It was even rather amusing, and she tried to look into the woman's eyes, dropping them sometimes because it certainly wasn't polite to stare so conciously and heaven forbid, what if she caught the auntie's attention. After a bit more shuffling, she managed to close her purse and so looked up. The auntie was still turned, glaring. It was a bit unnerving, actually. How it looked as though she was the one being stared at. Rubbish, she told herself. An illusion.

At the stop opposite raffles girls, the auntie turned back to face the front. The girl was rather relieved. It had been fun analysing the auntie's face, and even stare back rather insolently pretending that she was a rebellious daughter and this was her tyrant mother, but there was only so much you could look at when there was a woman glaring at someone in her direction, before one's mind started thinking of too much nonsense. Then the auntie whipped her head back. And screamed.

It was a short phrase, couldn't have been more than six syllabus. What was more unsettling to the girl was that she couldn't place the langauge. It wasn't chinese, english or anything like that. It didn't sound like any dialect she knew either. After staring, and staring again at the poor person, the auntie turned back. The girl beside the auntie edged away from her and closer to the window. The girl noticed that and was grateful she wasn't the one closed in beside that woman. Suddenly the head was whipped around again and this time although the girl was prepared for another scream it came in such volume that she literally jumped. More people were turning their heads, and since she didn't want others to think that she was the one being screamed at [she certainly wasn't], she turned her head slightly too towards the back row. Must be that guy, she thought.

Far East Plaza was the next stop, and many people got off, including the girl beside the woman. So did the guy behind her. And suddenly she was struck with the fear that the woman had been screaming at her all the while, even if she didn't know her. She scooted into the inner seat, so she'd be out of the woman's eye view, the lady beside her having left too.

She can't quite remember how, but the next thing she knew was that the woman had gotten out of her original seat and was walking down the aisle and sat. down. beside. her.

The woman's head was fully turned towards her, while her body was still facing the front. The same bulging eyes were directed completely at her, the same lipless mouth staring at her. Her worse fear arose simply because she didn't know what the woman would do next. For one broad moment flight decisions of all sorts presented themselves to her. And then she urgently tapped the girl in front of her.

"hello. I don't know who she is or what she's saying. Can you please go to the bus driver and let him know? I'm very scared."

The girl just looked at her. Accessing the situation. Should she help? The one trapped wanted to scream at the entire ridiculousness of it all. How could that girl not immediately rush off to the driver?

"Do you need me to go to the bus driver?"

She looked up. Her eyes focused on a guy who had stood up from the opposite aisle, trying to ignore the appalling face below.

"Yes please." With emphasis. And with that, he was striding down the bus.

She wondered what would happen in the meantime. And wished desperately someone had come along with her on the bus. Then her brain registered another voice.

"I'll talk to her . Can you try and inch out?" Another young male.

"I would hope so."

[in chinese] "auntie, don't be angry. come and seat over here." The auntie complied.

She rushed out, and her first instinct was to hide at the back seat.

"Go GO to the front." The front was full. So she went just a couple of seats in front. Which was the auntie's original seat, although the horrible irony didn't strike her till sometime later. The bus driver, a young one, came charging down. His verdict was that since she wasn't violent, everythiing was alright. He went back to his seat, feeling all poweful. Random uncles from their seats started turning around to make comments and adding their reassurances to strangers around them. Shaken, she just stared out of the window, wishing that somebody was beside her.

When she got down some time later, she looked up as the bus roared past her. The passagers on the left aisle were staring curiously at her. And her last glimpse of the bus was that woman, whose face was still the same, directed at her.