Oblivious (write of passage number twenty-three)

I could hear her long before I saw her, the steady and inane chatter of someone on a phone in transit: "OH HI!....I'M ON A BUS...YEAH, WHAT'S YOU UP TO?...."

When I rose to make my way to the exit, I found my way blocked by the usual crowd of people who cling to the space near the exits. One was a stocky woman, shopping bags slung on her arms, both hands gripping the bars on either side of the door. She had her head severely tilted to one side, gripping her cell phone between her ear and her shoulder, her eyes fixed in the middle distance, talking incessantly.

As we reached our stop, I managed to trade places with one young fella, so that I was standing at yakking lady's shoulder. The door opened and someone stepped down. The woman's arm dropped but she had not moved, so I nudged into the narrow space between her and the door.

"I'M GETTING OFF AT THIS STOP, SO YOU DON'T NEED TO PUSH," declared Yakking Lady over her shoulder as she clambered out. She proceeded up the flights of stairs, keeping up the commentary into the phone, with periodic backward glares at me. When I got to the bridge over the station, I watched her toddling off down the road and into the evening, cell-phone glued to her ear, packages swaying, possibly regaling her listener about the pushy woman on the bus. (The nerve.)