The bus was hot and crowded as a Thanksgiving oven.
It was summer time, and the sun beat down through the
shades, terrorizing the skin where it happened to fall. The
lady sitting on seat eighteen, by the window, was
desperately trying to shield herself with her hand-bag from
the unrelenting rays. The leather bag was getting warm and
wet with perspiration against her blouse. She was
middle-aged, broad and lightly sweating. There was a bad
smell about the bus, and at least fifteen men were silently
standing in the passage between the seats, so much like
icicles slowly melting away.
The passenger next to her was a young woman, in her early
and pretty twenties. Her eyes were fixed forwards, and even
when the lady turned to face her she continued to stare at
nothing. She wore a green summer dress, and she kept her
hands folded in her lap despite the heat.
''What a hell of a ride,'' the lady said aloud, wheezing and
fanning herself with her right hand.
Her younger companion wasn't paying attention and the remark
passed without an echo.
''My blood is too thick for this weather,'' she continued
trying to provoke a response. ''My name is Rita, by the
way.''
Still, the younger woman didn't seem to be paying any
attention and Rita was getting rather annoyed with this sort
of behavior. Her plan to take her mind of the heat with a
random conversation was working as efficiently as the
air-conditioner.
She turned away from the woman, dismissing her as a rude
snob unfit for any sort of earthly discussion, cancelling
any complements she might've offered her for her
(regretfully lovely) dress.
The ride was far from over. They had at least an hour more
to go, and it seemed that the laden bus was barely moving
through the thick of the desert heat.
Rita opened her hand-bag and took out a perfumed tissue
paper to wipe some perspiration from her forehead. She
thought she could feel the wrinkles through the tissue, so
the hand remained for an extra moment, smoothing the loose
skin with its fingers, her maintaining calm and methodical
breathing through the procedure.

The next ten minutes seemed to last for an hour. The low
humming of the bus provided the exclusive entertainment,
with the shades drawn as tight as possible. Rita was far
from comfortable, and thoughts of chilled water and the
air-conditioner at her apartment made her dreadful
circumstances all but unbearable. She shouldn't have gone
there today, she kept on telling herself especially since it
was already too late for any regrets. She was on her way
now.
She wished she could get some sleep like so many other
passengers who'd definitely escaped the heat for much cooler
dreams and hallucinations, nurtured by the desert journey
and the gentle humming and rocking of the bus. She felt
cheated that she couldn't sleep when riding, but she simply
never did. She was too afraid of all motor vehicles to just
lie down in any of them and close her eyes. Speed always
made her nervous, and she couldn't shake off the premonition
that any time now she would crash into a tree, or another
car, or that the bus would spin out of control and roll over
onto its side.
She was mortally afraid of turning up as a number in the
annual car-accidents statistics, in some newspaper.
She opened her handbag for the hundredth time it seemed,
though this time she brought out a water bottle. She had
almost forgotten to pack it, and a good thing that she
hadn't. She drank from the nozzle, sucking the liquid with
enthusiasm and a plastic cracking of the bottle as it
deformed from the vacuum. After several swallows she
replaced the cork and squinted, trying to measure how more
swallows were left inside and whether it would be enough for
her antagonizing journey.
Then, with unexpectedness that all but startled Rita, her
bus companion turned towards her.
She turned only her head; her arms and body still faced the
seat in front of her.
''Hi,'' the girl said, managing a curt smile that didn't
seem to go beyond her mouth.
''Well hello!'' Rita replied with a tone you use when a
friend tells you he has to study, and then you see him in a
coffee-shop with someone else.
''Can I please have a drop of water?'' Seat seventeen asked
in a voice that was all innocent, as if she was asking what
time it was and not for a big a favor such as this one.
Water, after all, was very valuable due circumstances. And
from a complete stranger she had ignored so arrogantly just
a moment ago. Rita frowned, but offered her the closed
bottle nevertheless.
''Thanks,'' the girl said smiling. She was careful not to
touch Rita's hand when taking the bottle, it seemed to her,
and Rita was becoming suspicious. This was such outrageous
behavior.
They let everyone ride the bus these days, she thought
scowling to herself, watching as her unfriendly companion
opened the bottle and wiped the nozzle with her hand. It
was more than Rita could take, and wide-eyed she tried to
formulate a semi-decent reaction but nothing came to her
mind until all she could do was mouth a ''How...'' and then
a ''What...'' in a voice filled with astonishment.
The young woman wasn't paying attention to her all the
while, and after cleaning the nozzle to her satisfaction,
she began to drink. The contact her lips made with the
bottle silenced all resistance Rita was mustering about her
against these atrocities of ungratefulness.
She watched, mesmerized, as the girl took swallow after
swallow, in a ritual that seemed to be going on for a solid
minute, reveling in the water. She had drunk too much
water, Rita thought after the bottle was unceremoniously
passed back to her. There wasn't much left, and she would
definitely have to buy herself another one on her way back.