WINNIPEG — While riding the number 12 William bus on her daily morning commute Jaynice Shermer, 37, actively fantasized about the world hidden just outside the filthy bus window.
“What wondrous sights could this grimy window be obscuring from my eyes,” mused the paralegal as she sat cramped into a seat. “The glass is only 6 inches from my nose, but what resplendent downtown Winnipeg treasures lie on the other side? Could it be a snowbank? A Tim Hortons? A bigger snowbank? There’s no earthly way to tell!”
After getting one child off to school and dropping the other at daycare, Shermer climbed aboard the same Winnipeg Transit bus she rides everyday, whose windows have been completely obscured by snow and road salt for weeks. “It’s like riding on a submersible, or some kind of fantastical rocket ship, having absolutely no clue about our immediate environment,” she added, while shifting in her seat to avoid a spilled liquid she hoped was coffee.
Shermer then pivoted to speculating whether the weather had radically changed during the course of her commute. “Sure, it was -27 degrees when I got on the bus (-33 with the windchill),” Shermer enthused, “but who knows how things have changed while I’ve been riding blind inside here. It could be positively tropical! How exciting!”
She then paused to crane her neck and grab a fleeting glimpse of the outside world while the bus stopped to pick up more passengers.
As our imaginative heroine visualized a fantastical world outside the fully-obscured bus windows, other commuters reported engaging in similar flights of fancy. “Who knows if we’re even driving in the correct direction anymore,” exclaimed barista Travor Maercks, 27. “For all we know, the bus has been hijacked, and we’re driving in the opposite direction towards a wild and exotic adventure. We literally have no way of seeing outside and knowing.”
Several commuters independently fantasized about the number 12 bus taking off into the sky, via some kind of “Magic School Bus scenario”. Other passengers gazed upon the Lotto 649 ad that had not been changed in over a year, imagining themselves in the lives of the smiling lottery winners. Still, several more committed themselves to actively imagining an outside flight of fancy in order to distract themselves from the passenger at the back of the bus clipping his toenails.
In a related story, commuters on the 12 bus travelling in the opposite direction were similarly staring at their own covered windows, imagining what mysteries were being concealed from their view.
