Hustling himself laboriously to the rear part of this jammed bus, finally he found a tiny space where his feet were able to rest whole body.  No sooner had he began to take a deep breath than he heard a familiar, mellifluous greeting of “Good morning.” whispering in his ears.  Barely could he turn his head towards the sound, he knew it was her, the lady he had tried hard to live with every minute of his life, but was now being reluctantly seeing her again, though deep down still he felt like seeing her, even a single glimpse of her.  With this ambivalent attitude towards her, the only thing he could do then was just return her another “Good morning.”, and then silence. Standing side by side, both of them were holding the grip, looking through the windows, mind straying.  He started thinking why he didn’t ride his scooter to the office today, why didn’t he come out earlier than she did.  And then…..

They were colleagues in a same company, but working with different departments.  Ever since he met her, he has regarded her as his idol, his goddess, for she was slender (not skinny), tall (relatively he was short), demure and graceful; and she graduated from the most prestigious university (he was just a graduate from an ordinary junior college), also a little older than he.  Coincidentally, they lived in the same neighborhood, often taking the bus of same route to office at same time.  By degrees, affection to each other grew, naturally?  Though couldn’t help falling, he just carried a torch for her, loving her from afar, for he couldn’t get over the insurmountable gap between them, psychologically, making him feel inferior to her.  Not until he entered that top-notch university she had attended as a transferring student, did he dare to give her an overt demonstration of affection.  She accepted him, but it was too late.  Guess what?  You are right.  The same old plot of the story turned on love triangle.  He had engaged to someone else, partly due to his lacking perseverance and determination, and partly under the pressure from his family.  What a pathetic two-timer he was!  He should have either spoken out his love to her loudly in the first place or concealed his sentiments deep in his heart forever.  Sometimes a single-minded but indecisive lover is even more despicable than a lascivious playboy.  He hurt her so bad for a period of time, and would hurt himself endlessly until he dies. 

It was a sultry, damp day of late spring.  Every passenger could not stand putting his or her jacket on in that over-crowded bus (no air-conditioned bus then).  She laid her light cardigan on the crook of her empty arm.  Suddenly a bumpy ride made the cardigan slipped out of her arm and dropped onto the floor.  He made an onerous effort and bent forward to pick it up.  Scarcely looking at her while she took the cardigan back; he glimpsed her smiling a slightest smile, almost unnoticed, but her eyes registered an expression of mixed sentiments: thankful, wistful, and mournful, demurely but languishingly.  The tears were glistening in his eyes; he turned his head away and tried very hard to keep the tears from trickling down his cheeks.  “How much further there were to go? Three stops, oh Jesus!”  Straightening up his back so as to be as tall as she, he then swore to Him, “O Lord, please don’t let her slip away from me again if there were an afterlife!”