There was a man sitting near the front of the bus. Something about him made me keenly aware of his presence. He wasn't particularly stunning, but he had penetrating eyes. His hair was normal, his clothes fit him nicely, there was just something. I couldn't take my attention away even when I wasn't looking at him.

The strange thing was, it seemed he was experiencing the same thing with me. I could see him looking at me in the reflection of the window and I felt this strange connection between us, maybe electric?

Then I became sad. Because I realized that this relationship would last 15 minutes. Then one of us would get off the bus and it would be over.

What made me sad was that we had crossed paths like this, for a moment in transit, and I probably will never see him again. Neither of us had the guts to speak to each other. And in this day and age, what does one say without becoming a weirdo hitting on someone on the bus? We left it at that.

And I felt sad. I didn't want to leave him on the bus. After I got off, I looked back to watch him as the bus drove him away, and he was watching me too. We watched each other leave our respective lives. It broke my heart.

We live in such a non-personal age. There are so many of us now that we couldn't possibly know everyone, and nod to people on transit the way they used to. People would say, "oh that johnny, he was watching arianna on the bus yesterday. we should introduce them".

Now it's watch the stranger and dream.

So I come home to an empty house and hungry cats and here I am, fresh from the Resident Evil advance screening and a few glasses of wine in my gullet.

I don't know whether to laugh or cry.