(Originally written April 27th, 2014)
The lights are dim save for the flicker of the bulbous tv in the corner. On it plays a kung-fu movie dubbed in Croatian but with French subtitles. I like to hope that the driver doesn't know French, as he seems to be the only one watching.
There is a dying rhinoceros on this bus too. It is very early in the morning now, and I have had a lot of time to come to this perfect analogy.
The lights are dim save for the flicker of the bulbous tv in the corner. On it plays a kung-fu movie dubbed in Croatian but with French subtitles. I like to hope that the driver doesn't know French, as he seems to be the only one watching.
There is a dying rhinoceros on this bus too. It is very early in the morning now, and I have had a lot of time to come to this perfect analogy.
After another catastrophic snort, one of the old ladies (of which there are more than several) submit what I can only imagine is their own interpretation in Croatian. The rest who asuredly are not asleep either, respond in an explosion of laughter. It suddenly becomes abundantly clear that besides me, the two drivers, and a dying rhino, the entire bus is old ladies. I must have missed it when I drunkenly stumbled on the bus. Now, sober as one can be under the circumstances, I am surrounded by what I liked to my mental image of the term “knitting club,” only maybe they've had a few a few drinks and for some reason are on overnight bus from Munich to Zagreb.
There is another jab at the rhino’s dignity (whatever in this moment he could even possess, the poor asshole), and now they are really rolling. It goes back and forth, left rows and right, with each line they get more excited and shrill. The bus's restless culminates into hysteria until, finally, he wakes when one pokes him for the loudest of the crew to land just the most killer of jokes.
There is another jab at the rhino’s dignity (whatever in this moment he could even possess, the poor asshole), and now they are really rolling. It goes back and forth, left rows and right, with each line they get more excited and shrill. The bus's restless culminates into hysteria until, finally, he wakes when one pokes him for the loudest of the crew to land just the most killer of jokes.
Is he mortified? No, he is hardly even perturbed. Turns out he doesn’t give a fuck. Not even a little one. After one solitary admonishment he passes out super hard and resumes his patented chaotic consortium of throat tremolo once again.
Seconds later from the back of the bus comes another Croatian squeak, and the bus is boisterous again, rolling along through the European borderlands.
Seconds later from the back of the bus comes another Croatian squeak, and the bus is boisterous again, rolling along through the European borderlands.
To be honest, while there have surely been innumerable times throughout my travels where an abstract tongue has caused me an envious desire to learn more languages, there never once was so much or more than in this moment, this insane eruption of giggles at three-in-the-morning. Have you ever heard a belly laugh from a bus full of Croatian golden-aged women? It is surely a sound I'll hold close long after the bus docks, the plane lands, and this journal lost and forgotten.
In the mean time we careen into the rainy night like thus. The driver hyped on karate, stampeding a bus full of hi-jink knitters, a rhino, and me, towards, presumably, Croatia.
In the mean time we careen into the rainy night like thus. The driver hyped on karate, stampeding a bus full of hi-jink knitters, a rhino, and me, towards, presumably, Croatia.
