Steve was not happy that morning.\u00a0 Well, to be honest, he was never happy.\u00a0 How could he be?\u00a0 Steve!\u00a0 Steve!\u00a0 Not Stephan, which could be pronounced like Stefan or Steven, but Steve!\u00a0 So plain, so ordinary.\u00a0 How could his parents have been so uncaring, so inconsiderate, so shortsighted, so plain?\u00a0 Steve.<\/p>\n
Steve was quirky for a teenager, even by teenager standards.\u00a0 He didn’t do the Goth thing, he just didn’t look good in black, and teen angst, well, that had been a part of his life since his earliest childhood memory.\u00a0 Steve was quirky in that he loved bagpipe music.\u00a0 He oftentimes imagined the sound coming from two dead, bloated geese being stepped on simultaneously.\u00a0 Some people likened it to fighting cats, but Steve knew it was dead, bloated geese.\u00a0 Steve had researched bagpipes and knew that at one time they’d been used to drown out the cries of the wounded on the battlefield, but he focused, instead, on the dead, bloated geese.\u00a0 Perhaps he’d be lucky enough to see inside the reeds of a bagpipe some day.\u00a0 Surely, they would be the vocal cords of geese, he thought.<\/p>\n
Steve’s difference did not stop with his love for bagpipes.\u00a0 He spoke a broken English that made him sound like he was from Jamaica, although he’d never been.\u00a0 Where he picked up that brogue no one knew.\u00a0 He also liked to wear kilts, and one day, to the amazement of all, showed up for class wearing a kilt.\u00a0 It caused such a stir that the school was forced to require all students to wear uniforms from that point forward.\u00a0 That made Steve popular.\u00a0 Sure it did.<\/p>\n
Although he loved his bagpipe music and derived a great deal of pleasure from it, he often listened to it when he was angry.\u00a0 This was why Steve was listening to his collection of bagpipe music at an ear shattering volume this bright and early morning.\u00a0 Of course, Steve\u2019s mother couldn\u2019t help but take this opportunity to express her love for him, screaming, “Turn that shit down!\u00a0 What, are you deaf?”\u00a0 Yeah, it was the beginning of a long day full of comments and criticism about him, a long day.<\/p>\n
The one bright spot in his day was his bus ride home from school.\u00a0 The city bus he rode consumed and spat out a variety of people, some nice, some not so nice.\u00a0 The bus driver, though, drowned out their presence and opaqued the background noises.\u00a0 She was a dark haired beauty with long hair that was usually tied back in a pony tail.\u00a0 Her laughter and smile were contagious as though her beauty was not enough.\u00a0 She was a beautiful person inside and out, a hard thing to come by in this world in which we live.\u00a0 He did not know her name, nor she his.\u00a0 He did not know her touch or perfume, but still he was smitten.<\/p>\n
Steve imagined the bus driver as an elephant tamer with whom he was allowed to ride.\u00a0 She commanded the great beast with gentle kicks behind the ears. \u00a0A kick behind the left and the leviathan turned to the left.\u00a0 A kick behind the right and it swung to the right.\u00a0 He watched through his romance colored eyes and was amazed at her adeptness at handling the beast of burden.\u00a0 At stops she directed the creature closer to the ground to allow departures and arrivals, and he was amazed when it responded by lowering itself.\u00a0 . . .<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Steve was not happy that morning.\u00a0 Well, to be honest, he was never happy.\u00a0 How could he be?\u00a0 Steve!\u00a0 Steve!\u00a0 Not Stephan, which could be pronounced like Stefan or Steven, but Steve!\u00a0 So plain, so ordinary.\u00a0 How could his parents … Continue reading