She stiffened up, her already upright carriage becoming more erect. She didn't look like she wanted me --or anyone else for that matter-- to sit next to her. I did anyway.
She squirmed a little, making room for me. My foot accidentally grazed hers, and she immediately pressed her feet against the side of the bus. She wore tan flats with an oxidised gold buckle embellishment.
I pretended to be reading, when I really was checking out her tanned, tones arm. She was skinny, skinnier than me. A black reptile skin watch encircled around her bony wrist, loose and lopsided. A black laptop case rested on her skinny jean-ed lap, along with a tan reptile skin tote.
"Hello? It's the stop after Serangoon, right? Okay, see you."
Clear, crisp, yet unexpectedly enunciated with a Singlish twang. I almost expected her to speak in perfect Queen's English, what with the poise and posture.
"Excuse me," a barely audible request emanated from her lips. I scooted, making way for her.
She got off the bus, and I got a better look at her. Tall, slim - a navy blue scarf wounded round her slender neck. A sleeveless, loosely-cut black blouse hung on her lithe frame. Streaks of faded bronze highlights accentuated her deliberately mussed-up gamine crop.
She wasn't pretty, plain-faced and nondescript features. Yet, there was something about her.
*******
This book, Varieties of Disturbances by Lydia Davis is really good. It's a collection of short stories. I generally don't like reading short stories, because they're too abstract and detached and many authors make use of its brevity to sound mysterious and deep, but it just ends up sounding pretentious. But this one's different. It really IS mysterious and deep, and thought-provoking too. The book caught my eye in the National Library because the cover was spot varnished. This is my favourite "story", which is just two lines long:
Getting To Know Your Body
If your eyeballs move, this means you're thinking, or about to start thinking.
If you don't want to be thinking at this particular moment, try to keep your eyeballs still.
Damn power, right?! It totally does your head in. You can try finding the book in libraries. But maybe not just yet. I'm still holding on to it.
You know, Miss Vignesh says she doesn't want to teach us anymore. That must be the most tragic thing to happen this year. Aside from a couple of minor calamities, of course. I am devastated. What is to happen to the dire state of my KI? I'll just die in the hands of another teacher... Oh, oh oh! Apparently, we're supposed to "ask the principal or vice-principal if we wanna know why". Urgh. Stupid teacher politics. Can't we all be happy?
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