10 Years and Counting

So I was walking back from school just earlier today.

What with me and walking, I do not know. There was once, I remember, when I walked from my house to Saujana (4km, 50 minutes walk), sat there for a while, and walked back again, all in the name of burning time.

There was even once in the holidays when I got so bored, I came up with this crazy idea of scouting the area of Taman Yarl and drawing a map out of it. Then again, according to some friendster survey long ago my deadliest sin is sloth, so you guessed it - I've never went along with the plan.

I have never got that bored, see.

Anyway, back to me walking home.

I was just walking past this restaurant where I vividly remember tasting very bad yam cake, and that taste subconciously jumps up my throat whenever I look in the direction of that restaurant. Not very pleasant. They had good fish, though. I've never took the initiative to remember how the fish tasted.

Then there's this bend right around that said restaurant where I have to go left then a quick right and I will exit from the Happy Garden area to Taman Yarl. Then something to my right caught my eye.

Big. Yellow. Wheels. Windows. Open automatic door. Bored driver.

School bus.

That was when I noticed the print beside the words "Bas Sekolah" - a little picture of (presumably) a mother duck and three ducklings. And from there a whole stream of memories came flooding into my head.

This was the same bus I wanted to get on during my preschool years so badly because I wanted to follow my elder sister to school. I remember screaming and screeching, trying to pull away from the maid and just hop on the bus and be off with it. And by the time it zoomed off, leaving that trail of carbon smoke behind, I would be wailing already.

Strange. I never remember what happens before or after that.

That was also the same bus that drove me back and forth Tadika Happy Garden (was it?) when I was 5 or 6. There used to be this geeky kid who liked to stand near the open door as the driver drove at a full 50kmph on the roads. There was once when he got so excited upon the sight of his house, he literally hopped out of the bus.

The bus was still moving.

Within what might just have been the time it took to blink. the driver hit the brakes and already had one hand outside the open door, saving the kid from certain death.

We used to call it The Donald Duck bus, for a lack of better words. Thanks to cable TV, Duck + Blue = Donald Duck. So the Donald Duck bus it was.

And the driver? Uncle Donald. I've never got around to finding out his real name.

I remember the seat where I sat on and absent-mindedly left a Rm5 note on the chair and I just got off the bus, not knowing I had been sitting on it in my semi-slumber. It was only about three seconds after I got off the bus that I remembered.

Crap.

I also remember the good old days where we had Childrens' Day, and one day I was carrying this whole bag of goodies and was all ready to open it when I got home. I stuck my hand holding that bag out of the window...

Crap.

Then there was also this other time when I was absently sticking my hand out of the window when the bus brushed past some leaves, and so did my hand. Duh. Then I felt something slimy between my fingers.

I was rolling it around, wondering what was it for a good 10 seconds. Then I looked.

A little, furry worm was being rolled back and forth between my fingers - by my fingers.

Crap.

The next few moments of the bus is comical to look back upon now, but back there it was a moment of sheer terror. I immediately let go and snapped my hand back, and the furry little creature sailed right through the air-

-and landed on someone's bag.

"Kill it! KILL IT GAHH!!!"

So I grabbed my trusty 500ml Coke bottle and smashed it. And it laid there, squashed by the might of the 500ml Coke bottle, on the yellow bag on the seat in front of me.

I recall my sister saying something about the worm's intestitial fluids being corrosive enough to melt a hole through my bottle. I never saw that bottle again.

Whoa, that's a lot of memories.

So I was looking at the driver - that same old driver who had driven the same old bus with the same old configurations, and he was looking at his seemingly empty wallet. 10 years, and he did the same old, same old.

10 years... what dreams could he have possibly forsaken, all in the name of maintaining the little that he had and was contented with.

I walked until the bus was out of sight.

"I won't become like you" I muttered under my breath.