The Bus Driver: Vitruvian Man

There is a certain degree of solace in finding a Vitruvian man in the midst of all of the chaos and confusion of one’s day.

“Where have I seen that pose before?” wondered Christina, as she watched the kindly looking, middle-aged bus driver. “Was that pose an art form of Michael Angelo? No, I remember! That was a drawing by Leonardo da Vinci!” 

The bus driver was standing just outside the bus door with both arms fully outstretched and legs apart. He appeared clean-cut, yet rugged, with his red hair and well-trimmed beard. He seemed deep in thought, as well as oblivious to others. Changing his pose, a sudden transition to the dancing footwork of an accomplished boxer, he appeared surprisingly light on his feet. His expensive runners did not seem excessively large, but they could have been dancing shoes. He had very long arms and big hands, now in a typical boxer’s pose.

Moments later, the bus driver returned to his station and began punching passenger’s cards.

“Vitruvian man, boxer and bus driver?” wondered Christina.

“I don’t fight. I just write,” he said to another passenger, as he jotted something in his black notebook.

“It looks like poetry,” thought Christina, moving towards the front of the bus in order to get her bus pass punched, too.

“I will come to you,” he signaled to her. As he approached, she could hear him humming a familiar hymn in a deep, tenor voice. He smiled at her, gently. His gaze caught hers and held it.

“It is as if there is no one else but us in the entire world. This moment is so perfect.”

He knew it too.

“He is going to kiss me and I am not going to stop him.”

As he bent his face towards her, he fumbled with his notebook causing her bus pass to flutter to the floor. Embarrassed, he hastily bent to pick it up, punched the card and handed it back to her. His warm hand brushed against hers, very gently.

The moment was gone forever, but not the inquiry into the Vitruvian man, who had impressed her forever.

“A poet and a singer too.”