Slowly, night painted the skies, steadily eclipsing the smoke gray clouds with determined strokes of indigo blue.
She smiled to herself and then threw a hopeful look down the street, praying to see her bus.
Sigh. No sign.
It felt like she'd been waiting for it since the beginning of time. She hadn't of course. But she had been waiting long enough for hyperbole to make a comfortable home within her thoughts.
Glancing down, a few feet away from where she stood at the bus stop, a solitary centipede ambled by.
She sighed again.
Well, at least we're meeting outside, she reasoned at the centipede, telepathically. Unlike your various kinsmen who were making a habit of breaking into my home several weeks ago.
Honestly, she continued, unfazed that the centipede seemed focused on its journey, paying her no mind. Honestly, I am perfectly okay with crossing paths with you outside...Preferably as a picture in a book or a magazine. But indoors-- where I sleep and eat and pay rent? I'm sorry, but that bugs me. HA! Get it? Bugs me? Because you're a centi--
She stopped mid thought and automatically glanced down the street again.
Come on bus, she conjured, silently. Where are you? Save me from making puns!