Constant Stalker
The bus is late. The afternoon sun is merciless.
“Bad accident,” one of a dozen of us waiting
announces, without looking up from studying the screen of his cell phone. “Bus
had to be rerouted.”
“How long?” a woman asks, futilely fanning herself
with an envelope from her purse.
The guy shrugs.
We’ve all queued up against a retaining wall that
intensifies the heat at us. To move would be to lose your place in line, maybe
not get on the crowded bus. I’m reminded of pictures I’ve seen of refugees in
the blistering heat lined up at feeding stations in places like Sudan.
The bus arrives, nearly filled. Inside, I wend my way
down the aisle past sweating bodies and clasp a pole for balance. It feels
sticky.
Five more stops.
An elderly woman sways, then crumples, knocking
against me as she goes down. I look at her huddled on my shoes, one hand
clutching my pant leg.
“Stop the bus, we’ve got a medical emergency!” someone
shouts.
The packed bus pulls to the curb. As soon as it stops,
the breeze from the open windows ceases and heat becomes insufferable. Doors
open, fellow commuters cautiously step past the two of us, eager to exit though
the blinding white heat outside is little better than this sweltering metal
tube.
The bus driver’s talking into a cellphone, looking
back at me.
“Did you call nine-one-one?” I shout. He nods. Who else
would he be talking to?
I feel pressure on my foot. The woman is moving, her
elbow is pressing against my toes.
“Are you okay?” Obviously not, or why would she be on
the dirty floor of a transit vehicle? I adjust my foot. She flops on her back.
Flushed and panting, she stares up at me.
I bend over and take her arm. “Can you stand up?”
The bus driver finished with his call, comes and takes
her other arm. Together we get her sitting up against the hard metal frame of
the seat.
“What happened?” she whispers.
“You fainted,” the driver says. “An ambulance is on
its way.”
My foot, now unencumbered, the driver in charge,
paramedics summoned, perspiration dripping from the end of my nose, I decide to
make my leave before I become another casualty of the most recent extreme heat
event.
Many of my fellow riders cluster in the sparse shade
of a street tree while they wait to re-board. I decide to walk the remaining
six blocks home.
To get to where I live, I must cross a secondary
arterial jammed with vehicles jockeying to gain a car length on their tedious
journey out of the downtown core. At the corner, I step off the curb indicating
my intention to cross, trying to make eye contact with drivers while I inhale
sweet-smelling exhaust fumes mixed with superheated air emanating up from the
asphalt. I’m impatient. My neck’s scorched, my scalp’s tingling. A white Toyota
hesitates. I make my move.
Whoa!
I teeter on the white line as a panel van in the other
lane passes within inches of my precariously balanced body. The car behind me
accelerates and I’m suspended between moving vehicles until one driver finally
slows and I sprint to safety.
But my home’s hardly safe. A heat dome has developed
the last few days and the converted attic I rent in a rooming house is insufferable.
I’m never there, except to sleep and have only come back today to shower and
change from work before I head out. Dinner on a restaurant patio would be nice,
but I can’t afford it and will I’ll have to settle for take-out in the park.
I scrub off the acrid sweat then rinse in cool,
cooler, cold water. Stepping out of the shower, I walk naked and dripping to
the open window and switch on the fan. While my body air-dries, I look down on
the bumper-to-bumper rush hour traffic pumping out carbon monoxide guaranteeing
an even hotter future. Another bus disgorges more passengers, two attempting to
cross where I did.
My eye strays to the upper corner of the window frame.
On the outside casing, a lethal-looking spider has woven a web and hangs head
down in the center of it. Separated only by a pane of glass, I move closer
examining the mottled white markings that form a cross on the abdomen of its
pale gray body. It’s beautiful.
A yellow-jacket flies into view busily exploring the
outside ledge. The spider tenses, the web reverberates. The wasp lands, takes
off, gets closer to the web. The spider is deathly still.
Perhaps it’s the breeze but this time on lift-off a gauzy
wing touches the filament coated with minute sticky globules. The wasp is
stuck, only barely, but it’s enough. In a flash, the spider is upon its prey
encircling it with soft, yet incredibly strong strands. The wasp tries to break
free while pivoting to defend itself with its lance-like stinger, but its
captor is agile, a skilled killer and avoids the barbs. The dance of death
continues for less than a minute until the hornet is immobilized by the cocoon
of silk. Then the spider moves in and sinks its fangs into the yellow-jacket’s
head ending the struggle.
The drama of this event unfolding inches from my face
has left me awed. In nature, death is always lurking. The wasp was alive and
full of purpose a few minutes ago. What, I wonder, would it be like to live
that way, with death a constant stalker, waiting for any miscalculation, a
moment of inattention, a wrong step?
Tires screech on hot pavement. Thud. Then silence.
I
look out to the street below and see a young man splayed in front of an SUV.
He’s on his
back,
the hot sun burning his face. Blood is pooling beneath his head.
Rod Raglin
Rod Raglin is a Canadian journalist, photographer and self-published
author of 13 novels, two plays and a collection of short stories. His short
fiction has been aired nationally on CBC radio and he’s been a prize winner in
Vancouver West End Writers’ Poetry Competition. He lives in Vancouver, BC, where he is, among other things, a paid
facilitator of creative writing circles.
Artist Statement