By: Gared Arthur
The afternoon rays of the sun have found their way to my desk.
It rests beside my notebook, a faint reflection caught on the surface of the desk as the professor talks at the front of the room. Around me, pens move quietly across paper. Somewhere, a pen clicks twice. I am writing too, copying a sentence from the board until my eyes wander toward the reflection at the window.
I held on to the image for a little longer until it became my own face beside a bus window, and the view outside started to move. Buildings slide past in long, quiet streaks, followed by trees that flicker between them.
Then the rest of the scene seems to follow on its own. I can almost feel the cool glass beside my forehead and hear the low hum of the engine beneath the seats. Someone is asleep against my shoulder, their weight warm and familiar. I watch the scenery without knowing exactly what I am looking for, content to let it pass.
I do not remember deciding to be there, or even where the bus is going. Perhaps that is why I stay. Nothing on the road demands an answer from me. There is no board to copy, no deadline waiting at the edge of my thoughts, no need to decide what comes next. The bus keeps moving, the road opening quietly ahead, and for a few moments, it is enough simply to be carried somewhere.
The professor’s voice reaches me again, cutting through the imagined hum of the bus. The road disappears first, then the passing trees, until I am back in my seat with my notebook open in front of me.
I pick up my pen again. The sunlight is still there, falling across the desk as it did before, but the reflection I see in it feels different now. For a moment, I wonder how the same light can hold two places at once: the classroom in front of me and the quiet road my mind had wandered toward.
In the end, the professor keeps talking, the words blending into the tiredness I have been carrying all day. I look at the reflection once more before lowering my eyes to the page, knowing that even when the world around me stays the same, my mind can still find another place to go.
