the stranger on the bus

I am the way I am because of advice a man gave on a bus.

Freshman year of high school, I needed a new mode of transportation. If sitting on a bus meant I could spare myself another suffocating conversation with my mom, then so be it. The night before, I did my research—bus lines, schedules, routes. I even watched a video on proper bus etiquette. Never killed a man to be over-prepared, even for something as trivial as public transit.

After my 6th-period Spanish class, I walked to the stop across the street and waited. The bus arrived, and I got on. Ten minutes into the ride, I realized I had taken the wrong bus. I should have noticed sooner—should have realized when we passed my neighborhood without stopping. But I didn’t. Or maybe, deep down, I did.

Because really, how does someone who spent three hours researching routes make a rookie mistake like that? It didn't add up. Unless I had purposefully sat on the wrong bus.

Around the fifth stop, a man got on the bus and, out of all the empty seats, chose the one right next to me. I was annoyed immediately. “Really? Of all the available seats, you pick this one? What have I done to deserve this level of agony?”

As soon as I finished the thought, he smiled at me, like he had somehow transported into my head and heard it himself. It freaked me out, but at the same time, I felt a spark of curiosity. Who was this man? What was his story? Was this some kind of coincidence or—dare I say—a guardian angel sent by God, proof that my prayers had landed in His hands rather than disappearing into oblivion?

Ten minutes passed without the man saying a word to me. Just as I was about to drown myself in horrible music, he finally spoke. I don’t remember his name—I wish I did. But I do remember the joke he used to break the silence.

"Do you think the bus driver ever feels the impulsive need to drive us somewhere random and dump us there?"

Without hesitation, I answered, “I don’t know, but I’d love to be part of the group that gets dumped. It would make for a killer story.” We talked for a few minutes, our conversation jumping from small talk to something heavier. It took a philosophical turn when I—without much thought—brought up death. I know. I probably shouldn’t have brought up such a bleak topic with a stranger on a bus going God knows where. But I didn’t mind it. He didn’t either.

There’s beauty in death. It’s a shame we live in a world where most people are too afraid to talk about the inevitable. Pretending it doesn’t exist is cowardice. I understand avoiding the topic as a way of shielding yourself from the thought of losing loved ones—but let’s be real. People are inherently selfish. When they hear the word death, their first thought isn’t about others. It’s about themselves.

And that’s okay.

Writers, in particular, might be the most selfish of all—our work is almost always about us, our thoughts, our observations. We turn the world into a reflection of ourselves, even when we swear we’re just telling stories.

As I explained to him, my definition of death wasn’t just the loss of the physical body—it was the abandonment of identity. I didn’t phrase it that way at the time. I think I said something simpler:

"I care more about my identity dying than I do about my body."

His answer gave birth to the individual I am today. He said to me,

“There are two kinds of people in this world," he said. "The canvas and the paint. The canvas is blank— a thing that exists to be filled. It absorbs whatever is thrown onto it, takes on the colors, the shapes, the meanings that others impose. It doesn’t create; it reflects. The paint, though? The paint doesn’t need the canvas to exist. It spills, it stains, it bleeds into the world. It leaves its mark whether it was meant to or not. It does not wait for anything, it just is.

And that’s the difference.

Most people? They live as canvases. They let the world decide who they are, let others shape them, let themselves be painted over again and again until they forget they were ever blank in the first place. But some? Some are the paint. They don’t ask for permission. They create meaning instead of waiting for it. It does not concern them if they make a mess as they’d rather stain the world than let it stain them.

There will come a point in your life where you’ll have to decide — do you wish to be the canvas or do you wish to be the paint?”

Unknown man

When the last vowel left his mouth, my world shattered. It was like being told by a doctor that I had three minutes to live, but somehow, those minutes were enough to feel as if I had lived for an eternity. It was like stumbling upon the necklace I lost in the ocean—something I had long grieved, suddenly in my hands again. It was like this man wasn’t a man at all, but a fairy Godmother sent down to shape me into the individual I was destined to become.

The bus stopped. He stood, wordless, and walked away as if our conversation had never happened. I watched him dissolve into the world, and with every step he took, he stole pieces of me—the parts I had long wished to be taken away.

The bus returned to the route I was supposed to take. I went home, but somehow, I never really left that moment. To this day, that nameless man has remained more present in my life than anyone I have ever known. I can’t explain why, only that since that trip, I have never dared to step onto a bus again. I am not a fearful person. But I am afraid of buses as they do not abide by the rules of reality.

His words remain painted on my skin. In some way, I have become his canvas. But since then, I have made it my life’s aspiration to morph into a palette of color cushioned by meaning, until I am no longer waiting for the paint to fall on me, but spilling into the world, fully myself.

Whoever you are, wherever you may be—thank you.