The Space of a Held Breath

On the way to work with only my earphones in, I never got around to choosing what to listen to. I only want to block the noise, but my mind won't settle on any channel. I, too, have started wearing earphones with nothing playing more and more. On the bus, with the scenery slipping past the window without a sound, that was when I could finally hear my own footsteps. That sound is clearer than any music, yet it never lingers for long. Only after the bus left the stop did the window go quiet, and what remained in my ears was not the engine but the stillness of that place. I sit on the bench at the bus stop waiting for the bus, and what I hear louder is the weed growing in the crack of the paving stones at my feet, rustling in the wind. Every time a bus passes, that weed bows its head and rises again. So I keep finding myself watching the weed before the next bus. I, too, see that moment when the weed in the paving crack rises again, from the bus window. Each time, I put my palm to the window, and for as long as the weed beyond the glass is breathing, I hold my breath. Different from the door sound you heard, what I hear is the woman at the kiosk opening her door each time the light changes at the crosswalk in front of the market. That door never slides at the same speed, and the day's weather shows in the angle she takes the handle. The evening wind brushed past the window and moved on. When I hear that sound and start walking, even the air that paused at the crosswalk seems to flow in the direction the door opened. Come evening, I can hear that door closing, too. That sound stayed there, as it always does.