The Bus Ride

Five more minutes, just five more and the bus would come.  She bounced from one foot to the other, trying not to seem too impatient, or to seem too cold.  Not that it mattered, no one else was at this stop.  Just a few more months and no more bus riding.  She stepped toward the curb, putting one foot on the street, careful not to get too far out and be hit by a passing car.  As she peered down the street, she saw a woman walking toward the bus shelter.  Behind the woman was a tall man.  Something seemed odd about the woman and man.  She turned back to peering down the street looking for the bus.  There it was, small in the distance, but definitely on its way.  She stepped back off of the street and turned toward the shelter.  Damn!  The man and woman had stepped into the shelter.
She walked to the side of the shelter, using it as a windbreak.  She couldn't help noticing how close the man stood to the woman and how she was turned away from him.  He was leaning down, head next to her ear.  Was he speaking?  The woman kept inching away from him and the man kept moving right with her.  She focused on the woman's face and knew immediately that something was wrong with this picture.  She stepped back to the curb.  The bus was still a way off.  She walked back to the shelter, but this time she stepped into it.  The woman looked at her with an almost pleading look.  She could hear the man now.  He was talking.  As she listened to him, she felt revulsion and fear.  He was telling that poor woman he would like to cut her up, rape her, hurt her over and over.  What should she do?  Leave the shelter?  Ignore the situation? 
As she listened to him, he followed the poor woman around the shelter and she felt anger.  How dare he!  She stepped forward and insinuated herself between the woman and the man.  She turned toward the man.  He stopped in surprise and glared at her.  He stepped left, so did she.  He stepped right, so did she.  He reached out and grabbed her arms, picked her up from the ground and moved her to the side.  For a moment she was frozen with shock. She quickly stepped back in front of him.  She felt a flash of fear as his face turned red and anger filled his eyes.  She couldn't see the woman behind her. 
The bus screeched to a halt at the curb.  The woman bolted for the steps.  She turned and bolted right after her.  The man did not follow.  The driver closed the bus doors and the bus pulled away from the curb.  At the top of the steps, the woman fumbled through her purse for change.  She had her bus card in her pocket and waited for the woman to pay the driver.  The woman fed the change into the meter machine, then turned and looked full at her for a brief moment.  The woman smiled at her.  They smiled at each other.  Then it was her turn to pay. (This story is a Making Shapely Fiction technique called "A Day in the Life".  In this technique the shape of fiction is created by the unit of time involved.  It could be a day, weekend, an hour.)