The shelter corner smells like wet concrete and old exhaust. It’s late afternoon drizzle, pressing against the glass of the timetable panel. I sit on the worn bench slats; they are damp beneath my jeans. There is a salt residue here, faint but noticeable, where people have leaned their weight over time. A small puddle has formed near the curb edge, and the rhythmic drip from an unseen gutter keeps time with the slow passage of minutes. The timetable sign always shows Route 17. It should be twenty-three. I know this because I saw a woman earlier who was waiting for the other number. She kept straightening a fallen leaflet that had curled up near her boot heel, smoothing out its edges as if it were important evidence. The glass panel is grimy, and beneath my fingertips, I can feel the peeling edge where the route numbers are printed. The air feels heavy, saturated with moisture that seems to cling to everything—the bench wood grain, the back of my coat, even the paper in my hand. Every time a gust of wind rattles the shelter, something shifts slightly into an incorrect position. A newspaper corner falls open onto the wet slats; I pick it up and straighten it immediately. The room corrects itself with this small action. It is always one thing that needs to be reset: the leaflet, the paper, or the angle of the sign glass. I watch a man across the way adjust his cap brim against the drizzle. He seems resigned to the wrong schedule. I trace my thumb over the damp wood grain where the slats meet. The drip continues, steady and predictable, marking time that doesn't match the numbers displayed above us. It is just waiting, really. Waiting for a bus that insists on arriving at the wrong moment, or perhaps never at all.
drip · tender