My Bag

Usually, when I’m on the bus, I’m very considerate. That means if I have a two-seater all to myself and am storing my backpack on the empty seat next to me, I will move my backpack if I notice that a lot of people are about to board. That way, a new-arriver doesn’t have to ask me to remove my bag from the seat. The seat is simply already free and able to be occupied easily.

Today, however, was different. Today I had both my backpack and my basketball equipment with me and decided to keep my bulky basketball stuff on the seat beside me after the bus got underway. I had been so good for so long, I reasoned.

I was on my way from a sparsely populated locale in Lower Saxony to a highly populated place, Harburg, and I knew from past experience that the closer one got to Harburg, the more people boarded the bus. But I was steadfast. Despite the growing number of people that began getting on the bus, I still kept my basketball stuff on the seat next to me. Most people, after seeing my sports bag, wouldn’t even look at me. They would just carry on to the back of the bus, hoping, I guess, to find a unencumbered seat there. Even when the bus driver got out of the bus at one point to help a wheelchair-bound woman board I remained unmoved. Instead, I thought, “Well, nothing to worry about there: she’s already got her seat!”

My conscience kicked in, I guess, at the second-to-last stop before Harburg. There, I noticed that a woman with a baby carriage was about to board. From previous experience, I knew that mothers usually like to park their strollers in front of the two-seater and then sit at the two seater's aisle seat. This allows them to sit and simultaneously keep a hand on the stroller

I moved my bag.

The woman with the stroller got on the bus, and just as I had thought parked it right in front of the two-seater. However, unlike how I had thought, she didn’t sit next to me. Instead she stood by the stroller, stabling herself by holding onto a strap above her. When I looked down at the stroller, I drew a quick breath. There were several tubes leading into the part of the carriage where the baby was. Though my angle was such that I couldn’t see the baby, I presumed that the tubes were connected to it, perhaps helping it breathe. I focused a while on the tubes. They were thick and made of non-transparent plastic and looked like tubes that one might find in a hospital or coiled in the back of an ambulance. The machine that they were attached to was stored at the bottom of the carriage and looked heavy, almost like a car battery. The tubes ran from the machine up and into the bassinet and had been carefully affixed to the stroller's handlebar so they'd be less likely to catch. Another woman was accompanying the woman with the stroller and the two ladies seemed to be in a pretty good mood. They were talking and even smiling, and I was glad that they seemed OK.

When the bus arrived in Harburg, the woman with the baby carriage and her friend disembarked. I remained on the bus for a minute or so after they had gotten off. There were a number of people in the aisle still and I had to wait for them before I could step out of the two-seater.

When I was about to get off the bus and was standing before the doors, I looked to my left and noticed that the wheelchair-bound woman was still aboard. She was the only one left on the bus except for the bus driver and me.

“Excuse me, I would like to get off the bus,” she said to the bus driver. Though it is the bus driver’s duty to aid people in wheelchairs on and off the bus, many riders often take it upon themselves to do the job. Doing so saves time, and in the past I have even helped people in wheelchairs get off and on.

The woman called to the bus driver again. I was able to see his eyes in the rearview mirror.

“Excuse me,” she said.