There was a golden spot and it was dancing on the otherwise grey ceiling of the bus. It moved around for quite a bit, dancing left and right, then hovering around next to the skylight – which was closed shut because it was October and temperatures had already dropped. Looking for a source, she tilted her head a little, searching for a reflective surface like a watch, glasses or a mirror. “Maybe someone’s refreshing their makeup?“, she thought. “If this was still the 90s, I’d look for someone switching CDs in and out of their discman but, hey, this is 2018, teenagers wouldn’t even know what a discman was?!”.
She thought about her teenage self, working a part-time job, saving several weeks worth of her salary to buy an original model and not one of the cheap knock-offs. The TV commercial for it had had a voice over that said: “THE DISCMAN – NOW WITH 10 SECONDS OF SHOCK PROTECTION! LISTEN TO YOUR FAVORITE TUNES EVEN WHEN YOU’RE ON THE RUN!”.
She caught herself staring into the void and decided to look up again. It was still there, a bright, golden fleck of light, hovering above other passengers’ heads across the walkway of the bus. “Heck, it was raining outside, so where did it come from?!” It had been a long and exhausting day at work, and she loved little distractions like this. It was why she actually enjoyed commuting by bus.
This is when she noticed the guy sitting one row to the right of her. He, very obviously, had biked to the bus stop. He wore a colorful biker’s shirt made of polyester which had several – probably some sponsors? – emblems on it, none of which she recognized. “One of the local cyclist’s clubs!?”, she said to herself. He still had his helmet on, and there, on its top, was a spotlight and very obviously still switched on, moving with every turn and nod of its owner. She smiled, reached into her purse, grabbed her headphones, put them on, and started the music app on her phone which was in “random” mode. It played “Ironic” by Allanis Morrisette which had been one of her favorite songs back in the day which was on endless rotation in her diskman. “I love life!”, she thought and smiled some more.