"Going"

The powdery snow swirled around in little eddies, intent on obscuring roads, melting down the backs of necks, and getting caught in eyelashes and hair. The city streets were quiet - perhaps because of the thick, muffling snow, perhaps because everyone was tucked away safely inside houses with warmly-lit windows, perhaps a bit of both. I stood there, nose-deep in scarf and jacket, a lone figure bathed in the steady glow of a fluorescent streetlight; a lone figure in the street, period. Not another soul disturbed the gentle quiet of the fresh snow.

The silence was interrupted by a distant rumbling, and the city bus, older than was probably safe for such treacherous winter roads, chugged around the corner, skidding and screeching to a stop before me. The doors protested in a squeal as they slid open, and the driver looked expectantly at me as I fished around in my pocket for some change.

"Shit... I think I'm a quarter short."

"Eh, whatever. Just get on."

Hauling my backpack over one shoulder, I managed to pull myself up the bus steps without slipping, settling into a seat near the front before the driver could start up again and throw me off balance. An elderly woman across the aisle smiled kindly at me before looking away, and a mother towards the back hushed a fussing baby as she shifted the child against her shoulder. Outside, the outline of houses stood against a steadily darkening pink sky, and vivid orange streetlamps contrasted against the soft blue of the snowdrifts, all behind the grimy curtain that was the mud-caked bus window.

The bus trundled down the hill, into the depths of the snowy city, clipping snowbanks and sidewalks as it took corners made sharper by the sheer amount of snowfall. Eventually the woman got off, later to be followed by the mother and child, and were replaced by a couple who cooed to each other in the back, and a drunken gaggle of laughing and shrieking college students, who all piled off again one stop later, one of the girls having forgotten her purse. Various others circulated through the noisy, muddy bus - a little old man with a cane who grumbled to himself about the weather; a teenaged girl wearing work pants and a Sobeys apron under her coat; a pair of middle-aged women off work, each clutching Subway sandwiches in plastic bags.

The bus chugged its way through the relatively busy downtown, with a short break, so the driver could stretch his legs and have a smoke. Then he was back, the doors screeched closed, and off we went again, rumbling through the city. Clipping another sidewalk, the bus turned right, and was faced with the bridge - a long, dark span, with only the occasional streetlight to reflect off the dark, turbulent river below. The sky was a deep blue by this point, and the inviting downtown lights faded as we crossed the dark, threatening river, made only more treacherous by the cold; and then we were safely on the other side, enveloped in the warm lights of the dilapidated buildings of this side, the "wrong" side of the city.

We passed by little shops and businesses, and through a tiny neighbourhood of small, poorly painted houses with snowmen, now buried thick in fresh snow, sitting in the yard. We passed a strip mall, an elementary school with an old wooden playground, a post office. One by one the remaining passengers trickled off the bus, and soon enough, no one else was left. Fifteen minutes was spent driving in complete silence, just the bus driver and I, with only the deep rumbling of the bus to accompany us.

He pulled into the empty parking lot of a small whitewashed church - the half-buried sign read, "St. Bridget's." Leaning sideways out of his seat, the bus driver turned to look at me, adjusting his hat.

"You get on the wrong bus?"

"Um... no," I replied, pulling myself out of my reverie as I glanced out the window, and hoisted my bag back onto my back. "No, I didn't. Thank you."

Ignoring the strange look from the driver as I hopped off the bus, I shuddered as the cold air hit me once more, and took stock of my surroundings. To the left of me lay a few lit houses down the road, the road that gradually led back into the city. To the right of me sat the church, and then nothing - simply the road curving away from the river and into the trees and the dark. I turned and watched as the bus trundled off, the rumbling fading into a dull roar, and then disappearing into the snowfall completely. I was totally alone. Without a moment's hesitation, I started through the shin-deep snow, out of the parking lot, and turned right, down the road.

Hell if I knew where I was going. I was just going, that was all.