FRUSTRATION

BEFORE YOU READ

The following is the full free online version of my novel FRUSTRATION. You are more than welcomed to read and share this publication with your family and friends. The links to the KINDLE and paperback versions of this novel are posted all the way to the end. Please enjoy the upcoming read.

INTRODUCTION

The relationship between a business and a customer is sacred to put it in simple terms. The customer, by offering their hard-earned money is directly putting all of their trust into the product or service that the subject business is offering.

But what happens when the customer’s trust is betrayed? When the business whom the customer’s trust is being put into doesn’t do their part of the bargain? The result can be disastrous for the customer at times. The following fictional story is inspired of a real-life experience that I; the writer of this book went through on Wednesday July 14^th of 2023. That day, I booked a ticket with a known intercity and interstate bus company going towards the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania.

That day unbeknownst to me, would turn out to be one of the most stressful, anxiety inducing and heart-breaking days of my life.

Of course, some slight changes have been made to the story in order to protect myself and most importantly, the real-life people involved. Also, the name of the company will be kept confidential for legal reasons, mainly to protect my neck from any legal actions taken against me because of this book. So instead, a fictitious name will be used.

The following story which although inspired by a real-life experience will be treated as fiction due to the slight changes that have been made in favor of writing this book. One of such changes is that the main character is a completely different person than I am, because I don’t feel comfortable writing myself into a novel, at least as of yet. Also, some characters have been gender flipped in favor of the main character being a young woman. Some of the names of the characters have been changed as well and the names that haven’t been changed will not feature a last name, in order to protect the person or persons in question who are identified by set names.

Thank you so much for giving this story a chance, I hope that this story will serve as first of all, good source of entertainment for you and as well as a good way to spend your time and to learn from someone else’s experience.

Furthermore, aside from what the table of content tries to make you believe, this novella is not a 100+ page long complaint. This is in fact a story, a story with lots of character development and as well as a lot of slight twist and turns that will keep you flipping the pages of this book in a manner like that of a conveyor belt.

I am very confident as the writer of this book that you as the reader will enjoy reading through this short novella as much as I enjoyed writing it and reading it as well. You can be quite sure that this novella will at the very least be entertaining, at the very best, it can be educational as well. It all depends on you, please email me with your thoughts afterwards. Enjoy!

-Franklin C.

CHAPTER 1
THE TRIAL OF THE WARM BLANKETS

If I had the opportunity to make a wish today, it would be that today was tomorrow. I mean, seriously, if only the blankets were just at the very least slightly cooler, then I, in turn would be able to get up from bed slightly faster and with a lot more ease.

The most dreaded sound that a dreamer could ever dread to hear at the beginning of the morning, the sound of the alarms that I have set on the night prior have been going off, looping around for about 15 minutes now. All I can do at the moment, is to stare at the ceiling while lying face up on my bed as the bright rays of our mother star hit my face. No, I can't even fall sleep again, I'm simply lying flat, face up on my bed staring at nothingness

as if I were in some sort of trance.

Despite my outmost efforts to ignore my alarms that are continuously going off one after another, in a manner such like a chaotic symphony, all I will be able to achieve is to delay the inevitable.

Because in the end, I seriously have to wake up today. After a few months since graduating college, I have had the luxury to sleep in a lot. Because of all the tremendous work that I had to endure for these past four years plus a worldwide pandemic, my parents thought that it would be a good idea for me to take half a year off to recover mentally, emotionally and physically.

Today though is a little different than the other days, and that’s kind of my fault. Today is one of those days that no matter how many morning bedtime excuses you make, in the end, you will have to wake up regardless. So, in what seems like a supernatural, superhuman effort, against

all of my primal instincts at the moment,

I finally manage to get myself out of bed.

Later today at 8:30am I am scheduled to board a bus, a bus that's heading straight towards Harrisburg Pennsylvania. I am supposed to be at

the New York City bus terminal at the very least within an hour before the journey begins, just in case any unexpected event takes place. This is actually quite the big deal for me, you see, I been living in New York for about 12 to 13 years ever since I arrived with my parents from Colombia. Ever since that time, I have only left the city two or three times in school trips. To tell you the complete truth, I don't really leave my house that often which is evidenced by this simple previously stated fact.

This will be the very first time that I will be taking a trip down to Pennsylvania. And as frustrating as getting up from my comfy bed is to me at this very moment, I have to admit that I am looking forward

to boarding that bus later today.

Something about me that you should know as well is that I love road trips. There's just this deep and vast sense of adventure as you see the landscape

passing by at about 40 to 60 miles per hour from your vehicle's window. You really get to take a sneak peek at so many worlds within this world, places that are unfamiliar and strange to you, yet, they are the same places in which many others would spend their whole lives at, and you, you're just a passerby that only has a quick brief glance at their homes

and lives.

Today I have a four-hour long road trip to look forward to and that on itself puts a smile on my rough looking morning face. Not only that, but I also have the promise of being in a place that I have never seen and been in before and that

also puts a smile on my still very rough looking morning face. Time to do something about this rough looking morning face of mines.

As I have previously mentioned, I been living in New York for about 13 years now, I arrived here from my home country Colombia in the summer of 2009 at the age of 12. And to be honest, growing up in New York has been a rough but yet a very fun adventure, that being starting up as a grown child to a rebellious and emotionally unstable emo-goth edgelord as well as a extremely chaotic teenager to a young adult college graduate. And throughout all of this time, I never knew that I had family living in Pennsylvania. Family members whom I know and met growing up as a kid but that I had lost contact with after I traveled here to the states. Seriously, I had absolutely no idea that they also came over here to the states while I was here living in New York. After resuming contact with them at sometime around a month or two ago, we opted for a little family reunion.

After getting up from my voluntary warm and comfy prison from which I will inevitably spend about one-third of my entire life expectancy or more, I head right on over to the bathroom. In there after taking care of my daily morning physiological needs, I treat myself to a warm lengthy shower. Right now, is about 5:16am so I can take my sweet time.

After exiting the hot steamy bathroom, I then submit my teeth to my daily rigorous teeth brushing routine. I love my teeth to be white and shiny, so I'm known to be very particular with my toothbrushes, needing replacement in about every two weeks or so.

Because today is a very special occasion, I have also opted to dress with my favorite clothes. I have this nice long neck black sweeter with my favorite sci-fi series "Spaceman Saga" printed on it. I have this nice red skirt with square patterns that I love saving for special occasions such as this. Finally, I have my trusty trench coat which is warm enough to keep me comfy during the cold winter and stylish enough for me to use in warmer months such as April. I also have my white long socks with Butterfly patterns and some comfortable shoes.

My hair doesn't require much work either. I have a rather simplistic approach to self-care, a smart woman like me knows that time is gold. I'm so

used to seeing my peers spend hours upon hours working on their extremely long hairs. My approach to beauty is different, you see, I still look good, but while being time friendly and comfortable. So, I often opt to keep my hair short.

After brushing my hair for like about five brief minutes, my hair looks ready to go. Now with my dress and grooming out of the way I need to take care of something just as essential as my looks,

if not more important, arguably. You see, every morning we humans are required to intake some sustenance in, which comes in the form of breakfast. Today in particular I am in a desperate need for nourishment. Once I exit my room, I head right towards the fridge with the mentality and intentions of ingesting everything in my path, while leaving nothing and anything left behind. As of now, nothing edible is safe from me, and with good reason, you see, as of now, I am currently going on a long and arduous air conditioner infused journey while being restrained by a good quality comfy chair, and

being exposed to a nice spectacular view of the north-eastern United States landscape while being overtaken with excitement and as a result of this, it is only just and absolutely fair for me to need my

tummy to be filled and satisfied. Thankfully, some leftover baked chicken that was mostly eaten by us yesterday is involuntarily and voluntarily willing to help me out with my current pursuits.

After boiling up and mashing some nice red skinned potatoes with butter and Mayo and steaming some nice frozen vegetables, I proceed to have my daily and well-deserved morning feast. But this

is not enough to satisfy my morning appetite. So as a result, I decide to accompany my delicious mashed potato breakfast that is now resting in a spa made of stomach juices inside my guts with a nice bowl of Cereal and sweet almond milk. Ever since I was a little girl, I always preferred salty cereals over sweet ones. For some reason, instead of feeling like a healthy part of my balanced breakfast, sweet cereal feels more like a sophisticated attempt to make candy breakfast.

I love my good old cereal based on a nice toasted pulverized corn with a nice cup of sweetened almond milk and as expected, alongside the baked chicken and the mashed potatoes, my corn cereal hits the spot.

Something to take note off is that these bus tickets are insanely expensive for my taste. Originally, I wanted to take a train via Metro North towards Harrisburg, but the tickets are so

expensive ranging from $300 dollars or more. The buses are no different in any way, tickets were ranging from $100 dollars to $200 dollars. Thankfully though, I was able to book a ticket for about $85 dollars but that's a big stretch, and as of today, I am still quite salty about paying that

much money to simply board a bus. This bus better be the fanciest bus in the whole world, with a movie theater featuring the latest films, a hot tub and plenty of food and music inside.

Finally, the most important part of

a journey for me is my trusty backpack. Trust me, I don't go anywhere past three blocks away from my apartment without it. I am known to carry my backpack everywhere. In it I always carry the essentials with me, those being: 1)A few

extra set of clothes since I'll be there for about two days, 2) my trusty towel and newly acquired toothbrush and an oat flavored deodorant, 3) also, because I want to have fun while on the road trip, I made sure to put all of my handheld video game devices as well as my two tablets and laptop. That's right, I'm a tech girl.

My parents are currently working so after packing my backpack I turn off and unplug everything in the house and proceed to lock the apartment door and leave my building. My out of state adventure begins now.

CHAPTER 2
THE WONDERFUL JOURNEY THROUGH THE NEW YORK CITY SUBWAY SYSTEM AND THE AMAZING ADVENTURES IN THE NEW YORK CITY BUS TERMINAL

The city of New York is well known for not being the greatest place to serve as a human’s natural habitat, but you know you live in a particularly bad area of New York city when at around 6:40am in the morning the first people you see in the streets are our beloved chain smokers, our lovely neighbors who’s main pleasure in life is to fill our already polluted induced air with good old Nicotine. To tell you the absolute truth, this is quite an unexpected sight for me. I never thought of these individuals as being ritualistic early birds.

Now that I am witnessing them in their full splendor, I cannot help but to imagine that they probably have an easier time waking up early every day than I am. Perhaps the desire to indulge is so strong, that their primal instinct of hugging their beds in a bizarre romantic embrace during the early mornings is dwarfed by it.

Upon accessing the most nearby train station to my house which is about 6 and a half blocks away from my habitual nesting place, I immediately notice that my train is only a few minutes away, which is a big plus for me, since I am already way ahead of schedule, which in turn means that today I have time on my favor. Waiting for the train is not an issue for me either, specially today, I believe I can expect a nice smooth ride all the way towards Times Square 42nd street.

Furthermore, since it is so early in the morning, there's no way that the trains will be full of people at this time, and that's another big plus. There's nothing better than a train cart with some nice personal space included in the ride, in a matter of fact, I would gladly pay the extra 15 cents being added to the MetroCard fairs if I can expect to get some nice personal space included with at all rides.

Anyways, the more space, the better and today surely, I will get that as well. A nice smooth ride as well as some very good personal space, right?

Sadly, I could not be any more wrong than I am today. Upon the train's arrival 5 minutes later after my arrival at the subway station, the first thing I notice is a whole ton of a lot of people and I mean seriously, a whole lot. I can't even believe what I'm seeing. I mean what are all these people doing here? Is 6:40am in the morning! Why is the train so packed in such a manner so early on?

Is like New York City is stuck in a perpetual loop of constant human activity, as in, no matter what time of the day or night it is in New York, there's just a lot going on in the streets here. No wonder they refer to the glorified can of sardines with lights included that we know as New York as: "the city that never sleeps."

The train is packed to the brim with workers. The train is so packed in a matter of fact that I have to take off my backpack and place it in the floor of the cart, and even then I can barely fit in.

With an already grim expression in my face and a slight feeling of frustration deep within my sub-consciousness, I cannot help but reflect in my dire situation at the moment. You see, at the moment, I am surrounded by hundreds of overly worked, heavily exploited, underpaid and extremely depressed individuals that are on their way in a perpetual spectacle in the manner such as in limbo towards their reluctantly voluntary daily enslavement routines which is their jobs right now.

I in the other hand, have to board

this train because I'm going on a nice air-conditioner infused field trip sort of speak. Because of this, I genuinely feel like I'm stuck in a human sized can of severely depressed and extremely overworked Sardines in human form.

A can of Sardines full of delicious Carbon Dioxide and, human skin particles worth of sauce, with liters upon liters worth of methane gas in the form of human farts as its condiment, instead of the traditionally and usually processed, heavily preserved, high in iron tomato sauce that we all know and obviously love, unless you’re a vegan.

Thankfully because I am a veteran of the rails and a trained expert of the New York City subway tunnels, deep down I know that once we arrive at first of all, 149th street Grand Concourse and the later stop at 96th street, the train cart will become more dispersed. But there's something we cannot ignore, in a matter of fact, this "something" is such an usual part of the New York city subway ride experience, that it may as well be a staple of it, an essential part of the New York city train riding experience.

I'm of course referring to the crazy, mentally unstable, emotionally neglected and physically deranged and morally questionable individuals that inhabit these highly transited tunnels. These folks can literally either make or ruin a train ride in my opinion pretty much like anything in the entertainment industry really. These folks come in all shapes and forms, there’s lots of variety here, first, to mention a few we have the common beggars that would go from cart to cart asking the already severely depressed, sometimes hungry and financially compromised riders that happen to be in their way. Then we have the evolved version of the common beggars that come in the form of desperate performers which are of course desperados who like the common beggar, would go from cart to cart, only that they would be delivering only but the best quality entertainment that any overly frustrated train rider can ask for. Seriously, Broadway should really consider some of these guys, they are extremely talented. we also have the evolved form of the desperate performers which are the more sophisticated performers who are actually trained on whatever their craft is. These guys are serious business and you should pay attention whenever they manifest themselves in your cart in human form, because they will surely deliver whatever it is that they are trying to do, they will do well.

Then we have the common Bible preachers delivering the message of the Lord to the already depressed and overly worked as well hopeless masses who are desperately trying to get to their destinations which is mostly work without being condemned to eternal suffering in a fiery hell in order to cleanse their sins, we also have the sellers who mostly sell candy for an overly priced fare which may or may not be influenced by inflation or their daily indulgences, and then we have the most wild out of all of them, the genuinely crazy people who are certainly good at keeping us the people

that although not crazy as of yet, may or may not be near that point regardless on the edge, constantly questioning to ourselves whether we are about to be featured in the 6 o’clock news or not alongside our crazy co-host or co-hostess’s. and of course, we cannot forget the hoarders who literally make a nest out of the train carts, making what would otherwise be a regular uneventful train ride more like a chaotic and nightmarish house-tour.

Thankfully, this ride does not feature any of the above mentioned at least up to this point and right

upon arriving finally at 96th street, the floodgates of the train carts open up releasing a massive wave of kinetic energy in the form of angry and

frustrated commuters whom only thing currently in their minds is to get to work and get things done. About half of the total passenger count disembarked at this particular stop and I cannot be any

gladder about it. Finally, I can take a seat and rest up my poor overly exalted back.
Upon releasing a deep sigh of relief that took place immediately upon my bottom part making physical contact with the seat in the train cart, the dreaded premonition that is on every traveler’s mind, the fear we all know will come true, but that we always hope we are wrong about comes to my mind. Deep down within my subconsciousness I utter to myself: "Today is going to be

one of those particularly long stress inducing days isn't it?" But let’s be optimistic here, Hopefully I am wrong and simply being pessimistic and overly paranoid about my upcoming journey.

Afterall, the last thing I want to achieve today and with all honesty is to graduate as a prophetess, a prophetess of the wheels, a prophetess of doom that can only predict bad things happening ahead of time. Only two stops left before I leave this train cart myself as well, so I must not get too comfy within the confines of this rigid 90 degree reinforced plastic structure that is this train cart seat.

Upon arriving at Times Square, I proceed to stretch my legs by straightening them all the way in a 180-degree angle from the upper leg to the bottom leg and a 90 degree angle from my torso. Upon getting up from that stiff and cold train bench and straightening my back, I could feel all of the blood in my body suddenly filling up my back muscles while my spine continuously cracks in a manner such as when the Earth’s tectonic plates crash with each other causing tremors all over the planet, and upon walking out of the train cart I make sure to send my aunt that lives in Harrisburg Pennsylvania a quick text message, just to let her know that I'm already on my way.

Perhaps, if I could move somewhere where life is not such a hassle and is not so overly packed with beings of my own species, maybe the quality of my life will improve. That thought is also another reason why I am heading down towards Pennsylvania, because perhaps, I could find a better life down there.

Outside of the train stop and, on the streets, surrounding Times Square, there's a lot going on as usual and as expected. You cannot help but to admire the tall skyscrapers that are surely giving the clouds a solid scratch with windows that

are great at sending our beloved birds swiftly and abruptly to the other realm and all the crazy flashing lights that will surely give a person suffering from

epilepsy an excellent run for their hard-earned money even during the daytime.

According to the GPS, the New York city bus terminal is only a few minutes’ walk away from the Time Square train stop. A walk that I easily

breeze through with my smart phone handy.

Once I have arrive at the building proper, I begin to notice that this is actually, an extremely large complex. No seriously this place, the New York city bus terminal is like a world inside our world.

Upon accessing the building by means of one of its many front doors, I cannot see an end to the vast open lobby, is like the lobby literally goes on forever. I suddenly feel like I am in a dimension composed solely of white walls and white ceramics, constantly being stepped on by dirty shoes to the dismay of some unfortunate janitor. Thankfully though, there's an information booth a few feet away from the front door, so logically I decide to start my journey there.

The man in the information booth seems to be chatting with what appears to be a random passenger but he's actually an employee. Since I don't take notice of this at first, I patiently wait behind the employee until the man himself takes notice and politely asks me to go right ahead to talk to the information guy, which I gladly accept of course. Upon approaching the information booth man, I politely ask him:

"Where is the terminal that leads to the

bus going towards Harrisburg, PA?"

The man looks at me and asks me which bus company am I going with. Obviously I don't know this; this is my first time ever using this service and I thought the bus terminal worked just like the MTA. Because of this I simply bring up my email and show the man my digital ticket.

"Swiftwolf, okay, go straightforward, go down the escalator and walk all the way to the end to terminal 66."

After speaking with the information booth man, I head right towards the escalator behind the information booth. The escalator is in the middle of the floor, and there is a long line right on its end. There's a big line of people trying to go downstairs as well as a long line of people coming up from the floor under. As a good and respectful citizen, I hop into the line myself to wait for my turn to also access the escalator downwards.

Right before my time to access the escalator comes, a big line of what appears to be a bunch of old people intercepts me going up, they are leaving

the escalator towards the direction where the downstairs starts and they are blocking me. But this doesn't bother me at all since I have time in my hands. What does bother me in the other hand though, is this really tall, really muscular, really angry and really mean man that appears from behind me suddenly and as soon as he appears, he grabs and tosses me aside like I am some type of unwanted plushie doll while yelling: "Move!"

Right as the group of old people finished clearing the area. This man tosses me aside with such force that I almost toppled and face plant the floor, thankfully though, I manage to incorporate myself before that happens. And it takes me about two or three seconds to fully process what just happened, time spent staring into nothingness with my mind completely blank. Upon processing the situation at hand, my body is filled with raging adrenaline, my blood pressure hits the engines full speed ahead. There's only one choice to be made and that choice is violence. That's right, I am angry now, I am really-really angry, but there's a slight issue here. You see, this man is tall, muscular, angry, and mean and who am I? I am a 5'6 tall, slim, angry, raging young woman whose strongest weapon of war is her bright white well brushed teeth that's literally going against this 6'5 behemoth with violence in mind who’s probably ready to fight anyone to the death over who gets to access the escalator downwards first. As this man goes down the escalator the only thing, I am able to spill out is: "We'll see how far you'll get treating people that way!"

Obviously, I do not spill these words as eloquently and elegantly as presented in this text format. To tell you the truth, my attempt to sound threatening is all out pathetic, people in the escalator alongside me simply look at me with the "are you seriously going to engage this man?" Type of look. The man of course ignores me and continues on. He knows that engaging me is pretty much at worthless pursuit. I realize pretty quickly that I stand no match against this hippopotamus and simply incorporate myself and continue to head down the escalator quietly in shame knowing that not only have I lost the battle, but the war as well, knowing deep down that this man didn’t consider me as a worthy opponent, probably to my advantage.

Now that I am in the bottom floor of the facility, I find myself facing the same issue that I faced upon entering the building proper. There's no end to this place in either direction and I can't determine which direction is gate or booth 66 found at. But once again, thankfully near the bottom of the escalator there is a gate with "SwiftWolf" as a logo on its top. So, in my naive mind, I interpret this as the place I am supposed to go to.

This gate also serves as an information booth and this booth unlike the other features a line, this means that this time I have to wait before speaking to the information agent which is not that big of a deal as of now. The line goes by very quickly despite it looking a bit lengthy, and sooner than later my turn to speak to the agent arrives. Upon engaging the agent, a young woman, I simply ask her: "Where is the bus that departs towards Harrisburg PA at?"

"You mean the one that departs at 8:30am?"

"Yes, that one."

"That's gate number 66, that will be right

to the left all the way towards the end, in

a matter of fact, you will see it as soon as you leave this gate."

"Thank you so much!" And upon exiting the gate, hold and behold, I see a large sign displaying: "Gate 66." All the way to the end of the bottom floor. I head there as quickly as possible. It doesn't matter to me that I still have about an hour and thirty

minutes of wait time ahead of me, I simply want to be where I am supposed to be as soon as I possibly can, and then wait, this is because, I’d rather be bored than be late.

Something odd about this place now that I stop and notice is that, you see, this place is nothing like I expected a bus terminal to look like. My expectations were a bright place with white walls and white ceramic floors, with lots of chairs, lots of vending machines and lots of restaurants and stores inside. In essence I was expecting an airport and what I got is something far from this mental image.

This place and by this place I am referring to the bottom floor, looks more like a clinic, and not just any clinic. This place looks like either a laboratory or a place where you go to euthanize your animals. The lights are a bit dim but not enough to make the place look dark. The walls are painted in shades of blue. Navy blue in the upper part of the walls and the bottom is a darker shade of blue. The

floor is a tiled floor, and the floor is some form of grayish blue as far as I can remember it. The are chairs but not as many as I expected. There are only two lanes of five very narrow chairs and they are off to the side near the walls. Almost all chairs are occupied by now, by some rough looking people. In a matter of fact, these chairs are so narrow that in the end I prefer to remain standing. Yes, personal space is really that important to me.

Furthermore, there's trash lying around sparely around the place, but despite this, no less noticeable. There's also wind in this room and I can't help but to find that to be strange since we are supposedly underground. Wind literally blows inside here which in my mind gives me a hint of how big this place really is. Not only that, but there

are also birds nesting in elevated corners

of the room which is also odd to me. What’s the deal with New Yorkers digging such large holes? This place is literally a glorified cave system, disguised as some form of bus facility. These birds casually

fly down and pick up whatever food items they could get their beaks on and you can see them casually walking around the waiting room as if they are passengers themselves trying to reach a destination.

There are thankfully two bathrooms, and they look pretty clean, there are also two clean looking water fountains which is a big plus for me, regular H2o intake is pretty important to me, since my body wastes so much water by simply existing. There are also some vending machines featuring snacks and drinks which I'm currently keeping an eye on in case that I want to try get some snacks. There's also a janitor currently cleaning the place which is pretty

reassuring at the very least. In a matter of fact, too bad that I can't sit on one of the chairs. You see, if you can't already tell I am very Claustrophobic and I really value my personal space, seating in these chairs will mean that I would have to make physical contact with the rough looking strangers who may have showered today or not, that fact being ambiguous on a person is not a good sign at all.

There is this man speaking franticly on a foreign language in the phone. He seems to be on a video call, what makes this man notable for me is that he seems to be pointing the camera at me and

I don't like that. Obviously, he's not videotaping me or anything, I mean why would someone want to video tape me? I'm simply standing here in the

corner and not doing nothing remarkable besides existing and taking in air while giving the world and all its inhabitants a good taste of my carbon Dioxide. When the man notices me looking at him with a grim and rough looking expression, he turns away and leaves from the booth, never to be seemed again. Weird but okay. Now that it is 8:15 in the morning people start lining up in front of the door that leads right into the bus parking lot which is underground. As soon as I see this happening, I also make my way towards the line and get in it. Behind me there's this young woman that looks kind

of lost, she has a backpack and a luggage with her, she also has an absent expression on her face. I ignore her at first but she actually engages me to my

surprise by asking me: "Hey, can you watch my luggage for me? I want to get some snacks from the vending machine before boarding the bus."

I see nothing suspicious about her or what she's asking of me so I reply by saying: "Sure thing, go, but make it quick."

Upon hearing this, this young-looking lady leaves her position on the line behind me and heads right over to the vending machines in the back of the booth. She approaches the vending machine that contains drinks and purchases a Cola. After obtaining her beverage she heads right on over towards the vending machine that features snacks and attempts to purchase some snacks.

On the meantime, while I'm watching this young woman from a distance, this employee that seems to be assisting the bus driver who is standing by the door that leads to the bus is passing some pamphlets. When he approaches me and attempts to pass me my pamphlet, I make eye contact with him and ask him: "What is this?"

The young man looks at me and replies: "This is a survey; you can fill it out if you like and hand it to me by the end of the bus ride."

"Oh okay, I'll make sure to fill mines up

but there's a problem."

"Yeah? What is it?"

"I am completely paperless; I am digital only so if I could have a pen."

"Ah, no problem, ma'am." The young man passes me a pencil which I happily receive. Upon turning back towards the young woman whose luggage, I am watching at the moment; I notice she still is trying to purchase snacks. From what I can tell the machine is acting up and is refusing to give her desired item. What a bummer, seems like the machine has swallowed her money. The janitor who was mopping the floor earlier is trying to aid her but to no avail, the vending machine insists on keeping the money and the snacks. This matter is worrisome to me because I am watching her stuff, and I don't want to remain stuck with this woman's stuff. Out of the sudden though, a technician shows up and opens up the machine, giving the young lady her

coveted snacks, she then comes right

over to the line again and as soon as she gets back, I proceed to greet her back. "That was quite the struggle you had there."

"The machine wasn't working."

"I can see that." Deep down, I could tell this lady was not from this city. Something in her eyes displayed innocence and naiveness, so because I felt kind of bad for her and for her wellbeing, I proceed to tell her: "Listen, watch out with whom you leave your stuff with. You see, many would have just said yes to your request and as soon as you turn your back, they will scram with your luggage never to be seen again."

"Yea I know but I just didn't want to take

all of my stuff over there just to bring it back."

"I feel you."

"Uh huh."

"Where are you from?"

"I'm from Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic."

"Really? Nice! I heard they got nice

beaches over there."

"We do actually, how about you? Where

are you from?"

"I'm from Bogota, Columbia. May I know your name?"

"My name is Veronica nice to meet you

and you?"

"I am Tubeppa feelings mutual." Great, now I have a travel buddy, my partner in crime who's going to be by my side if things go downhill from here or someone random that I will never see again, if everything goes according to plan. Either way, is good to have Veronica on standby. Upon approaching the door that leads to the bus, the driver asks for the ticket which I swiftly bring up from my email. The bus driver looks at me briefly and asks me: "Where are you going?"

"Harrisburg."

"Okay get in."

Honestly though, I almost let out a sweat droplet in here because my paranoid inner self thought that I was in the wrong bus. Since I have never used these services, I simply assumed that this bus has only one stop, but no, the bus has a few stops. Before Harrisburg, the bus has to make a quick stop in the city of Philadelphia and after arriving in Harrisburg, the bus will continue on towards the city of Pittsburg. Interesting. Inside the bus, my primary concern is to find my assigned seat. Upon looking towards a guy and asking him where seat number 8b is he said not to worry about it, I could seat wherever I want which is great. Obviously, I wind up picking a seat in the middle back right by a window. Hopefully the bus doesn't fill up so that I could have two seats to myself, one for me and one for my trusty backpack. This bus is pretty neat both outside and specially inside. You can clearly tell where all the budget went in. The windows have dark glass which allows you to look outside, but nobody from outside can look back in, and it doesn't let in too much sunlight which is perfect for an introverted and socially abstained maniac like me. The seats are big and comfortable but a bit stiff and straight to my taste. I can't lean back too much because there's a couple seating behind me, or at-least I think they are. There's air conditioner which makes the inside of the bus a bit cold but that is not a problem because I have my trusty trench coat on. The driver gets in and shuts the door and upon seating in the driver seat,

he proceeds to introduce himself by saying: "Hello everybody, my name is John, and I will be your driver today. This is a Pittsburg bound bus, our next stop will be the city of Philadelphia. When we arrive in Philadelphia, we will make a 10-minute shopping stop before resuming our journey towards Harrisburg. In total, the journey from here to Harrisburg will last four hours so tighten your seat belts, this will be a long, nice drive."

No better way to start this journey, don't you think? MTA bus riders should really take note of this, or not, we’ll see.

CHAPTER 3

THE FANTASTIC DRIVE FROM NEW YORK CITY, THROUGH NEW JERSEY, TO PHILADELPHIA

The bus is preparing to depart. Something that is slightly annoying me is the air vent. You see, as I previously mentioned inside of this bus is pretty cold, but once again that's not very annoying. What is annoying is that one of the many air vents inside of this bus is right above my head and is on its fullest setting. The thing that baffles me about this air vent is that I don't know how to turn it off or lower its pumping speed, after all I am a tech girl, and I can be very handy as well when I need to. Something else that I remember mentioning before is that the

bus is not full how I expected it to be. In a matter of fact, saying that the bus is not full is actually a little bit of a stretch. This bus can very well fit 300 passengers, but over here in this bus there's about a hundred at most. This makes this bus pretty empty. Perhaps

many of the passengers could not overcome their warm blankets earlier this morning and decided to re-schedule for another day or time.

Something noteworthy about this

bus, and something that is kind of a new thing for me is that there's a toilet in the back of the bus, that's pretty neat, not that I will need to use it but still. After John's brief rehearsal the bus sets off. I as a good girl make sure to have my seat belt put on, the bus is a big bus, but we can't underestimate a car crash. The bus makes a couple of turns, I can't necessarily tell which streets we are on, all I can tell is that at the moment we are still in New York. Suddenly we pass by a what I think it is the Lincoln Tunnel but please don't quote me. Sooner than later, we arrive in Jersey City. From the window I can see the large building scape of New York being bordered by the great Hudson River getting farther and farther away. The view is so nice, and the day is so clear that I decide to take out my phone and record a quick video, but sadly the video doesn't look as good as it appears in real life. Sooner than later and to my surprise, the landscape changes from

large buildings to smaller buildings and just a little further down the line the landscape changes again from small buildings and houses to fields, distant

towns and lots of astonishing farmlands and windmills. Seriously this is so beautiful, I wish I could make a video of the passing landscape all the way through but that's a stretch and even if I did, it wouldn't look as good. This is something to enjoy right now at the moment. I could only imagine the feeling and sound of the wind as we pass by all of these places, good thing I am not being directly being hit by it though. At some points we also pass through forests and for the longest stretch of this journey, the scenery switches back and forth between forests and farmlands.

My co-riders are also a bit interesting. Like me, they are all people out in a call for adventure. I could only imagine, some of them are going out to visit friends and family and some of them are simply returning back home from their most recent trip. Among them there's a large family of African descendance, they seem to be bickering about something, but nothing really that serious, they are seated two roads to my left. There's this pretty nice young couple who seem to be really enjoying their time together in this bus the best way they can at the moment some kisses here and there and as well as some cuddles, I kind of feel jealous of them to be frank. Furthermore, there's this Amish couple and their young adorable little girl. They are also seating a few roads ahead of me also to my left. The young woman named Veronica, the one whom I spoke to earlier is seating two roads behind me, so I can't see what she's up to or talk to her either.

Staring at the scenery passing by at about 60 miles per hour can be very fun, entertaining and can give space for reflection but, staring at a window can

only be engaging for so long. My co-riders also seem to feel the same way too, many of them are shutting the sheets in order to block the light from their particular windows in order for them to fall sleep.

The light doesn't bother me to begin with, my only problem right now is that I am feeling bored. We are currently 45 minutes into this ride and now I am beginning to feel the weight of these upcoming four hours. Because of my sudden boredom I decide to grab my trusty backpack and take out one of my handheld video game devices to play some games, which I am glad I have with me. But as fun as playing my video games is there a slight issue that I always seem to ignore when going on any long trips. When I am riding on any sort of vehicle and I start doing something else besides seating down and waiting for the ride to be over, I start feeling dizzy. That's right, ever since I was young, I always struggled with motion sickness and I know that I am stating the obvious, but this is annoying, like really annoying.

Despite this, I am still able to play my games and use my phones during quick intervals, and then I would take a break to let my body recover sort of

speak. This dude behind me, he looks Turkish or Indian whispers something to me. To be completely frank I have absolutely no idea what he's trying to tell me, so I respond by leaning back slightly and asking him: "What's up? How can I help you?”

"Hey, I'm sorry to bother you but can

you share your hotspot with me?"

"Uh sorry no, I can't. You see, my internet is actually limited and if I share my hotspot with you, I will run out of signal really quick."

"Ah okay sorry, thank you." I'm glad that this guy understands because with all honesty, I don't want to share my hotspot with anybody. After a short while of gaming it on, I start to feel really dizzy. So, after putting my gaming handheld back in my backpack I grab my trusty trench coat and start using it as a blanket. Many of my co-riders are already deep in their sleep and I begin to feel that maybe I should join in on the fun as well and be part of a party of snoozes and snores, after all, it is okay

once in a blue moon to simply follow the current, but not always. Right before I ooze off though, I decide to check on my GPS, to see how far we have traveled. To tell you the truth, maybe I should not have done that, when I saw that we were far from even crossing the border between New Jersey and Pennsylvania, the only thing I could do is let out a deep sigh. "This is going to be longer than I thought uh? Guess a little sleep is justified."

With four hours of passively seating down staring outside in a window that's currently moving at 60 or more miles an hour, it would be big blessing if I could simply sleep through the whole journey.

But I have to be shrewd here, part of me wants to stay alert in case some crazy apocalypse happens, so I set my alarm to ring in half an hour intervals.

With that being said, I fall sleep. After what seems about 25 minutes passed, I wake up. Sleeping under these conditions is kind of a struggle, but I still manage to pull it off here and there. For curiosity's sake, I decide to pull out my GPS again just to see that we are still deep within New Jersey. I also make

sure to look around my parameters and pretty much everyone is sleep, everyone that I can see with my own two eyes of course, I have no idea what's going on behind me after all. So, after setting the alarm again for another half an hour, I fall sleep again.

Another half an hour passes, when I check my GPS again, I see some progress finally. We are still within the borders of New Jersey, but we are also closely approaching the parameters of

Pennsylvania which is great. After seeing this great news, I make sure to look around my parameters again and everything seems fine. Once again, most passengers are sleeping still except that some of them are now awake and using their smartphones. Nothing remarkable here to dwell on, so I ooze off again.

After what seems like about 20 minutes John speaks via the speaker again, he remarks: "Hello everyone! Hope you’re enjoying the ride so far. We are now fast approaching Philadelphia, remember that once we arrive at the bus terminal there, we will take a 10-to-15-minute break in which you can get off the bus and shop around."

Knowing that we are fast

approaching Philadelphia is pretty promising, but there's still some time before we make it there. So, in the end, I decide to fall sleep for another half an

hour again. This time I wake up to some passengers complaining to the driver. I can't quite tell what is it they are complaining about since I can't hear what they are saying very well. All I can observe at the moment is that some of the passengers are pointing towards the air vents that are above them. So, who knows? Perhaps they feel that the air hitting them is way too cold? Way too strong? Way too fast? Who knows? It is not my problem anyways.

At this point I bring up my phone to check my social media accounts when I suddenly hear a bearded man yell: "Hey John! The air is too hot!"

That explains it, so apparently the

air vents are pumping hot air at the moment, at least some of them are because mines are still super cold. John by means of the speaker replies to the

bearded man: "Okay! Once we get to Philadelphia, we will do a quick check up."

Not so much time passes until we make it to the parameters of Philadelphia. From afar it looks like a massive thriving city just like New York. As I see the massive skyscrapers getting bigger and bigger at a fast pace, I can't help but to reflect on the fact that the world is a lot bigger than we humans can understand. Obviously, we know that, but I believe more often than not we take that fact for granted. We have so much going on within our small confined overly crowded spaces that we often forget that there's so much more going on beyond our parameters.

Deep down, within the deepest confines of my subconsciousness, my mind can't simply comprehend that there are more places in the world aside from New York city. That matters little though,

no matter how hard it is at the moment

for me to fully grasp this fact, my eyes

can't stop providing me with the overwhelming evidence. The streets of the downtown area of Philadelphia are crawling with people going on about their daily lives. People whose entire existence I was oblivious of until this moment. There are people standing, there's people fast walking towards their jobs, there's people socializing and more, way more. So much is going on at once and this is outright amazing. In one of these streets, there is this middle age homeless man begging at the side, he has a sign displaying: "Need money to build a spaceship."

And the funniest part is that the drivers are stopping, having a laugh and giving the man money. Honestly though, I would have done the same thing. Too

bad I have a 2.5-inch-thick dark glass stopping me from handing the man some nice juicy change.

Suddenly the bus makes a right turn into a moderately sized parking lot. We have arrived at the Philadelphia SwiftWolf terminal. At this point we will be here for about 20 minutes at most. After that, the next stop is Harrisburg, my trip should be over soon.

CHAPTER 4

A FATAL TECHNICAL ERROR! FRUSTRATION BEGINS TO SPROUT IN THE PHILADELPHIA SWIFTWOLF TERMINAL

We have finally arrived at our first shopping stop in the city of Philadelphia. Some of the passengers of the bus are starting to get off to go shopping in the nearby area for some snacks and drinks. Since I am not really familiar with this

area nor this bus system, I decide to stay inside of the bus. Afterall I am not really hungry at the moment nor thirsty. Those mashed potatoes with baked chicken as well as the salted corn cereal with sweetened Almond milk really did hit the spot. According to John this shopping stop will last approximately 15 minutes.

In a manner so sudden though, John begins to tell everyone without discrimination to get off of the bus. I don't really get to hear it at first until John himself addresses me by telling me: "Hey you! You need to get off the bus now! Until we check what's going on with it."

"Am I allowed to leave my stuff here?"

"Yes, leave your stuff here, everybody

will be getting back into the bus in about

15 minutes."

At first my inclination is to leave my stuff in my seat but something tells me to take my bagpack with me, after all, I am a very anxious person and I tend to become uneasy when I'm far away from my things in an unfamiliar place. So, in the end, I take my things with me. To be completely frank, this

situation has made me a little upset, I really want to continue on with my journey but now that we are experiencing some technical difficulties, who knows

how long we will be here for? Hopefully we can get going with the trip within the next 15 minutes or so.

The passengers upon stepping out of the bus either go out shopping within the nearby area or stay standing by the bus within the parking lot or inside the bus terminal. The weather is no longer clear, rainclouds are starting to cover the sky and it is also starting to drizzle a little. The weather is also becoming a bit windy and coolish.

The place where we currently are at looks like it has seen better days as well. The parking lot looks uncared for and the building itself looks abandoned in a way. The parking lots are surrounded by what seems like decrepit apartment buildings which are still operational by the way, as in, people are living in those places. There's trash being tossed around and dragged on about by the winds. The walls have cracks on them as well as the pavement, and there's

also some parts of it that have graffiti. This is not what I expected a bus terminal to look like, but I am not going to be here for too long after all, so I won't pay this much mind.
I then decide to approach Veronica who has also decided to remain in the parking lot while John and some staff members of the bus terminal are checking up the bus. There is this trapdoor at the side of the bus where you would usually put the luggage in which the staff has opened up and they are currently checking the guts of the bus with flashlights. Veronica looks just as upset as I am but for different reasons apparently. There are some vending machines near the entrance of the bus terminal but they also look a little uncared for, there are still some items inside of them but there’s something odd about their packaging, for example, some sodas look like they haven’t been taken out of those machines since the 90’s. I am not joking, the packaging says it all, these sodas have archaic designs that are no longer in use by set brands. I am sure these might even be worth something now a days.

"I wonder if these vending machines are even working." Says Veronica.

"This place doesn't look so well, so who knows? Only one way to find out." I say to Veronica in response. So, Veronica and I decide to

approach the vending machines that are nearby the front entrance of the bus terminal, and to our surprise, most of these vending machines are completely empty. "This place has definitely seen

better days." Says Veronica.

"I agree, I have heard some things about this city, some of them are not good." I say to Veronica in response, once again. Suddenly, John rallies up all of the passengers and says:

"Alright everyone! You can now get back into the bus!"

The passengers start cheering now upon hearing this and for good reason. The weather is now starting to become more hectic, and the slight drizzle is becoming closer to heavy rain. Once inside of the bus, I immediately reach the same exact seat

that I was seating in before, but there's a slight issue. The inside of the bus is way too hot to for comfort right now. At first, I don't pay this no mind since I believe that the air conditioner will cooldown the bus little by little. At the moment I am simply happy to be allowed back into the bus.

Suddenly though and to our misfortune,

John by means of the intercom tells everyone:

"Everybody we all have to leave the bus again! The bus is too hot!"

"Again?!"

"Yes, everybody step off the bus please! Until the bus is able to cooldown."

So once again, all of us step off the bus again, and this time to a turbulent weather. It is now raining heavily alongside with heavy winds. Because of

the bad weather some passengers decide

to head into the bus terminal to seek

refuge there. Veronica and I alongside

with a small group of passengers decide to stay outside by the building near the bus.

John then decides to approach us who are standing by the side of the building and while some staff members are continuously checking up the bus.

John begins telling us the truth of the situation:

"Alright guys, listen up to what I have to

tell you. The cooling system of the bus is now broken." After hearing this the passengers

start uttering:

"What, come on!"

"I'm going to have to take the bus to the mechanic and come back."

These are obviously horrible news. Everybody is now upset, but deep down we all understand that technical errors can happen anytime. "Everybody come inside the bus terminal with me please!" So, in the end, we all come inside the bus terminal where John once again rallies us up to once again utters the message: "Listen up everyone! The cooling system inside the bus is broken! I'm going to have to take the bus to the mechanic to get it checked then fixed and then come back here. Going to the mechanic should take me 20 minutes."

After relaying this message to us

once again, John approaches the manager of this bus terminal, and they proceed to go towards the back room to talk. This situation is overall very frustrating, and I am not exaggerating. This is the first time I use these services and something like this has to happen? Now we are going to have to remain here for who knows how long?

The inside of the Philadelphia SwiftWolf bus terminal is a large open room that serves mainly as a waiting area. The place is packed, there is currently two lines of people who are getting ready to board their particular busses, one of them is heading towards Atlanta New Jersey. The place looks no better than what it does outside, the whole place is in a decrepit state. There are a lot of chairs but nowhere near enough chairs for all of the people that are currently here at the moment. This means that those of us who just came in are going to have to stand all the way until John comes back from the mechanic. Now I want to use the restroom, so

I inform Veronica to wait for me for a second while I go off to use the toilet.

Now, If I thought that the place was in a deplorable condition already then get ready when I start talking about the bathrooms. These bathrooms are in a horrible decrepit state as well. The place is very dirty. Some bathroom stalls are completely exposed because some doors are outright broken or straight up gone missing. Some of the toilets are literally unflushed, you can see other people’s physiological solid waste floating in some toilet bowls. The soap dispensers are still working fine which is good, so in the end, I manage to care for my

physiological needs while not having physical contact with the toilet.

Once I step out of the women's room, I notice that Veronica is nowhere to be seen, so I start looking for her while yelling for her name out loud. I become frustrated at the fact that she didn't wait for me, like doesn't she understand that we are travel buddies now? While I am going around looking for Veronica in the large waiting room, I hear someone knocking in the glass crystal from outside. Veronica is knocking the glass from outside. Upon seeing her, I approach the glass door of the side but it's locked.

I then approach the other glass door that is further up on the side of the building, but it is also locked. My frustration starts building up because of this and I start pulling the locked glass door forcibly to no avail. Veronica then swiftly points at the right door that she used to exit outside for my convenience, and I end up exiting the bus terminal by means of the glass door on the side. Upon going outside Veronica tells me: "Hey, I'm going to go get some snacks while John goes towards the mechanic, here take my phone number and call me in case John comes back before I do."

I agree with Veronica and take her phone number. Veronica then leaves the parameters of the bus terminal towards the streets outside. I then proceed to go back into the building. I could have also gone ahead with her but since I am not familiar with this area nor this bus system, I don't want to take the risk of being left behind here.

There's this man, a passenger who seems to really know his way around these roads. Something about his demeanor seems to inspire confidence in me, his serious facial expression emits a no-nonsense vibe which is very reassuring to for me, someone that has no idea where she is or what her surroundings are. He seems to be waiting at the information booth so because of this, I decide to approach him and ask for his name: "Hi, I'm Tubeppa I'm on the same bus as you are."

"Hey there, I'm Mark."

"You seem to know your away around this system, how long do you think the driver is going to be at the mechanic for?"

"Definitely not 20 minutes obviously, remember that 20 minutes is the time it will take him to get there to the mechanic, so him going there and coming back would be 40 minutes."

"Uh huh."

"So, at best it will take the driver around

an hour to get back, 20 minutes to arrive

at the mechanic, 20 minutes for the checkup and the fix and 20 minutes to arrive here at the terminal."

"So, you’re saying that it will take him an hour?"

"That's because I'm being optimistic at

the moment but in this case, it is best to simply expect the worse."

"Oh God, don't say that I'll hope for the best, after all, one hour is not so bad."

Mark goes ahead and takes his seat which he found when he got into the bus terminal earlier. I decide that If I am going to be in this place for an hour at best, I may as well find a seat and spend the whole-time playing video games. So, I begin looking around the large open waiting room area for a free seat, and fortunately to my surprise, I happen to find a seat all the way to the back near the bathrooms right by the Amish couple that I mentioned earlier that were seating a few rows ahead during the first half of the ride, so I go ahead and take that seat. Upon approaching the seat, I proceed to greet the Amish couple by saying: "Hello guys, I hope you are all doing well, may I take this seat right by you guys?"

The Amish couple are very polite about me asking for the seat right by them and in a very kindly way they respond: "Yes, go right ahead, the seat is all yours." So, I take the seat and make myself right at home. The Amish man now leans on to me and whispers in my ear in a country ascent: "20 minutes to get back into the bus, right?"

"Honestly, seems like we are going to

have to wait a little longer than that to get back into the bus. Probably around an hour wait at best."

The Amish man lets out a slight

sight. "Well, is alright as long as we are able to get back home in time it should be okay."

Now that I remember I decide to

send a quick text message to Veronica: "Hey, the driver is going to take approximately one hour to get back so you can take your time." Veronica replies by saying: "Okay, thank you for letting me know, I'll be back there soon."

A few minutes pass by while I am in my seat scrolling through my social media accounts when I look up right ahead of me, there's this man that looks really lost, he also seems to be desperately seeking help from someone. My instinct upon seeing this is to simply ignore him since after all, whatever he's going through is not directly my problem, but part of me feels like I can help this man and my consciousness would simply not let me ignore him for long. As I get up from my seat, I turn towards the Amish couple and let them know: "Hey, I'll be right back, can you watch

over my stuff?"

"Yes of course, go right ahead." I know I can trust them with my things, after all, the Amish are God

fearing individuals, my things will be safe with them, after this interaction, I head right towards the front desk area to greet the lost looking man. Upon approaching him I greet him by saying:"Hey, hello, are you okay?"

"No, I urgently need someone that is able to speak Spanish please."

"Hey, I am of Hispanic descent too so I know more than a thing or two about Spanish, how can I help you sir?" So, the man turns towards me and tells me in Spanish: "I need to go to Atlanta city in New Jersey, can you please ask one of the agents in the information booth if they have any buses available that are headed that direction?"

"Sure, thing sir, considerate it done." So, both the man and I approach the information booth agent and as soon as the agent takes notice of us, I proceed to ask the agent:

"Hey, this young man right here is looking for a bus that is headed towards Atlanta, New Jersey. Do you have anything available at this moment? He seems to

be in a hurry."

"Yes, we do but, our next bus heading towards Atlanta will depart within a few hours, if you want there's actually a bus nearby here that goes directly towards Atlanta, do you want me to show you

where it is?"

"Yes of course, go ahead, tell me."

"The bus stops right there between 10th street and Filbert Street, in a matter of fact, once you reach that interception you will see it right there."

"Alright, thanks, I appreciate your help." After this I relay the information to the man and we both proceed to exit the bus terminal and head right on towards the interception between 10th and Filbert. Upon exiting the bus terminal, I can see that this street Filbert is a very busy street, there's lots of businesses and places to go into, for example, a few feet away from the bus terminal there is a large looking movie theater. At first, I feel the urge to go check it out after I finish helping this man, but my adult responsible self tells me to not even try

it, since John may show up in the bus sooner than later. While we are walking towards the interception, I proceed ask the man out of simple curiosity: "Are you new here? How long you been living in the states?"

"Yes, I been living in the States for

about 3 months now, I come from Jamaica."

"I see, listen, I always tell this to

everyone that has newly arrived at this country, the hardest part about moving to United States or any country howsoever is the beginning, everything afterwards is just fine." The man smiles briefly while

reflecting on something I will never find out about. Upon seeing this I turn my face towards him and ask him: "What is your name sir?"

"My name is Albert, nice to meet you,

what is yours?"

"I am Tubeppa, is a pleasure as well."

At this point, we reach the interception between 10th street and Filbert where the bus stop is visible right about a block away. At this point, Albert and we shake hands. "Thank you so much for your help, ma'am."

"No problem, Albert, it was a pleasure, I wish you the best in all of your endeavors from now and on."

"Same."

Upon saying this, Albert parts ways

with me and runs towards the bus that literally arrives as we are shaking hands. This is the last time Albert and I ever see each other. I hope he's doing well right now as these words are being written.

After Albert goes away towards his own journey, I head right back into the bus terminal, back into my seat besides the Amish couple. There's this grocery shop right there in the interception between 10th and Filbert so because of that and because I am aware that Veronica is in a never-ending quest for finding the most delicious snacks, I decide to send her a quick text: "Hey, you know that there's a grocery

shop right there a few feet away from the terminal between Filbert and 10th, you could also go there to get some snacks.”

"I know, I was actually there a few minutes ago, I am back inside the bus terminal now, I am seating in the back near the restrooms." Veronica texts back in response.

Interesting, so as I head back into my seat I find Veronica right there, seating by a seat besides of mines. I have absolutely no idea how she ended

up there but there she was, and to be honest, that is totally fine. You can say in some bizarre way, that destiny has brought us together. As if God himself wants us to be together for this occasion.

Veronica got herself a small plain Cheese Pizza pie and a bottle of Soda, the girl is living the dream, and I don't blame her, I'll probably do the same later. As we casually seat right aside of each other, Veronica is eating her food and I am

playing my video games, suddenly, out

of frustration and with a straight face, Veronica while still eating her Cheese Pizza utters: "I am so frustrated! I'm going to be late for work today!"

"Uh? Where do you work?"

"I work a few hours away from Pittsburg

in a resort."

"You should call your boss then and let them know that you are going to be late today." After I told this to Veronica, her face tightens a little, she seems reluctant to the idea of calling her boss. Because of her apparent reluctancy, I proceed to say: "Listen, whenever I was arriving late for work, I would always call my boss and let them know about it. It is never a

problem, it's something that happens and we all know and understand."

"They are going to fire me." Veronica says, she is totally within her own dimension right now within the confines of her mind. Veronica now starts to become nervous and slightly frantic. As a response to this, I go ahead and say: "Why would they fire you for this

Veronica? It is not your fault that our bus broke down and that now we are delayed, what time are you supposed to punch in for work today?"

"I have to be there at 10pm on the dot."

"Veronica, we still have plenty of time, is about 11:30am right now, we still have the whole day ahead of us, I am sure the bus will be back soon and we will be able to continue."

Veronica now lets out a deep sigh, I am not sure if it is as a response to me or as a result of her own mental stress, than she says: "Okay, I'll wait an hour before calling my boss and letting her know."

Something must be going on with her, it is completely normal to be late to work every once and a while for circumstances that are out of our control, so I don't know what her deal is, perhaps she has a track record of lateness which that on its own is something to be concerned about but hey, this time it is not her fault. Perhaps she's simply being pessimistic at the moment, who knows?

"Listen, even if you got a track record of lateness, there's literally nothing you can do right now. The bus broke down and it was not because of you, is just life." I say this to Veronica in order to make her understand that what is happening right now is not her fault.

"Yeah, I know but I am still a little

nervous, you, see, my bosses had to talk

to me earlier this month because of my performance, I really do not want to add lateness to my track record." Veronica responds.

"I see what you mean now. Still, trust me when I say that it is not a big deal, I am sure that after you explain to them what happened today, your bosses will understand." I say to Veronica in response. Because of the most recent developments, I decide to send my aunt, my family member waiting to receive me in Harrisburg a quick text informing her:

"Hey, as of right now, I am currently stuck in Philadelphia for approximately one hour because the bus broke down, but I should be on my way shortly after that."

"Okay honey, let me know if anything

else happens." My aunt responds. After this, while waiting for time to pass, I decide to take out my drawing tablet and in order to sketch a little. As I sketch a nice original character, the Amish couple that is seating besides of me takes a keen interest on what I am doing. In the beginning I thought that what I was doing is considered offensive to them because I am currently using technology but as I soon realize that belief is a huge stretch. Both the husband and the wife seem very amused by me drawing in my small tablet, so upon taking note of them, I decide to show them some of my best drawings. The couple is very impressed by my modest sketches, so the husband turns towards me and asks me: "What is that?"

"Oh this? This is a drawing tablet; we use

it to draw and sketch just like paper."

"How many pages can you fit in that?" The wife asks.

"Thousands! Thousands of pages, you

might as well never run out of them to be honest."

Upon hearing this, both the man and the woman are astonished, and briefly glance at each other with awe. They seem to be very amazed at the fact that you can fit so many pages inside of this small little square of a tablet. To me, this situation feels very wholesome, and I like it.

I am already aware that the Amish are a community of people that prefer to keep a primitive lifestyle away from anything electronic or technological and from the internet. Back when I was in middle school, I had the opportunity to learn a lot about them and their lifestyle during history class, but this is actually the very first time in my life that I actually, get the opportunity to interact

with them on person. So, because of this I turn towards the couple and proceed to

ask them: "What are your names?"

"My name is Daniel, and this is my wife, Sophia."

"How about your baby girl? She is so adorable! What is her name?"

"Oh, our baby? His name is Jehosaphat, he's a boy and he is 9 months old right now."

"Wait what?! He is a boy?! I thought he

was a girl!”

"Yes, I know! It is quite hard to tell but he is indeed a boy." Sophia says. Upon hearing this, I chuckle a little. I find this baffling because the little baby is dressed in a manner that makes him look like a girl.

"I thought the baby was a girl because of the way he is dressed."

"That is because at this particular age, the only thing that differentiates a boy and a girl is the strap they wear on their head. Besides that, boys and girls wear the same clothes."

"Ah! I see, that's good to know, I'll keep that in mind for future reference!" At this point my geekiness or nerdiness, whatever it is that you call it started to kick in, you see, I am a big history girl, I love reading about the past and I also love reading about different cultures, so I addressed the couple and started saying: "I find the Amish to be so interesting, the way their lifestyle is and their unique sense of fashion. I find it so fascinating how advance, yet primitive you guys are, for example, I have watched so many videos of when you guys literally pick up a house and transfer it from one place to another! You guys literally do it by hand! I never knew that buildings had the capability of being moved until I learned that from you guys." Daniel and Sophia just stare me

with a blank smile during the course of my monologue, and at the end, they don't really seem to know what to say in response. Then Daniel very nonchalantly replies:

"Yea I guess, I mean we try our best you know?"

Now I, in a very excitingly manner address Daniel and ask him:

"What are your hobbies?"

"Well, I guess I don't have any hobbies, now a days I am almost always busy." Daniel says.

"I like to Knittle outfits for my children on my spare time." Sophia adds in response to my question.

"Waw! That is a very essential skill you

got there! Knowing how to Knittle can get you out of a bind and can come in very handy. Especially when one has no money to purchase clothes." I say.

"I know right?!" Sophia responds.

At this point, after a brief awkward silence, I decide to take out my video game console and start playing games. Daniel takes note of this and starts watching me play, as a response, I lean in a little towards Daniel so that he can have a good look of what I am currently doing within the game’s world.

I am currently playing an open world monster catching game, at some point during my gameplay, I go into the inventory of my character and proceed to take out my bike. In the game, the bike pops out of nowhere after you click on it’s inventory icon. This has no real-life application how so ever and this seems to amuse Daniel a lot, to the point that he starts chuckling. As a response to Daniel chuckling to me taking out my bike in the game, I say to him in response: "Yes! It is impressive how far technology has come!" As we both chuckle to this.

Despite the light moment we are having right now, it is hard to get distracted from the fact the bus has yet to come. You see, at this point, it has been longer than one hour already. Right now, you can sense tension growing in the air, the passengers of the bus going towards Pittsburg and other busses are starting to feel concerned about the whereabouts of the bus. In a matter of fact, I can see Mark from afar having what seems to be a discussion with the information booth agent. Because of this, I turn towards Daniel and tell him: "I'll be right back; I am going to check out what is going on."

"Okay, go." Daniel says.

I turn towards Veronica and tell her the same thing. Then after letting my traveling buddies know, I swiftly go towards the front booth and join Mark.

Mark takes notice of me and he looks very upset, like something really bad has happened.

"What happened Mark?" I ask with a low concerned tone.

"Look at your email." Mark responds.

After hearing Mark's response, I take out my phone and log into my email address to see a recent email sent by SwiftWolf not so many minutes ago. The email says: "We are sad to inform you that your trip has been cancelled. Please call this telephone number below in order to get your money back."

Immediately after reading this email, my eyebrows started to twitch a little. And a slight devilish smirk is reflected on my face. All that comes out of my lips upon seeing this email is: "This is going to be one of those days, isn't it?"

This is going to be one of those incredibly long days after all. In the end, I have managed to graduate myself as a prophetess of doom after all, great! I can at least add that to my resume later. This on itself is not a good thing though, I mean come on? Why am I always wrong whenever I expect the best of a situation but always right when I expect the worse? In my opinion, this inherent ability of mines is a huge rip-off.

CHAPTER 5
THE DISSAPOINTMENT THAT LEADS TO A HEART BREAK; THE INCOMPETENCE OF SWIFTWOLF IS QUITE BAFFLING

The trip towards Harrisburg and Pittsburg has been cancelled suddenly by the company, the passengers of the bus heading towards Harrisburg and then towards Pittsburg are now stranded in Philadelphia. The bus that was headed towards Pittsburg has been taken out of commission. Apparently, our dear friend John the bus driver has gone missing from the scene, which means he most likely went home after going to the mechanic. All of us are frustrated, all of us are sad, all of us are mad. And I am officially a prophetess of doom now, great! Now that I have had a few seconds

to fully comprehend the situation we are currently in, I bring out my phone. Then I proceed to call the number that it is provided by the email from SwiftWolf. The phone rings a couple of times, but sooner than later to my fortune, the operator agent picks up:

"Hello, thank you for calling SwiftWolf, my name is Jeff, how can I help?"

"Hello, yes, this is Tubeppa and our bus headed towards Pittsburg has broken down and our trip has been cancelled by SwiftWolf."

"Okay, would you like a refund? Or would you like to reschedule your trip?"

"Yes, I want to reschedule for the next soonest departure please."

"Alright, great." Jeff now proceeds to ask me for my ticket number which I promptly provide to him, after I provide my ticket number to Jeff, Jeff proceeds to ask me: "Okay, so where would you like to go?"

"I want to go towards Harrisburg. I came from New York and I want to go to Harrisburg."

"Where are you currently?"

"Sir, I am stuck in Philadelphia, that's

where the bus broke down."

"Okay, so you came out of New York and want to go towards Harrisburg, correct?"

"Yes, correct sir, but remember, I am in Philadelphia right now." The reason I am emphasizing so

much the fact that I am in Philadelphia

right now, is because I want to prevent my ticket from saying that I come from New York headed towards Harrisburg, basically I am simply trying to prevent any logical error from being displayed in the ticket which then may or may not cause problems for me later on when boarding the next bus to take my desired route. Furthermore, I have an incline that Jeff doesn't quite get what I am trying to explain to him based on the tone of his voice, something about his voice sounds off, like he is confused of some sort. Perhaps my Hispanic ascent is quite troubling for him, as it has been for some throughout my life, so is good that I make sure we are both on the same page here.

"Alright ma'am, so I have this bus that is departing from New York at about 3pm and it’s scheduled to reach Philadelphia by 5pm, would you like to take that bus?"

"Wait what? It's about 12pm right now,

are you saying that I will have to wait five hours until the next departure sir?"

"Yes ma'am, this is our soonest departure, is either this or a refund." How frustrating! But I guess I have

no choice after all so I guess I will have to take it. So, I tell Jeff: "Okay, I'll take it." This situation is so discouraging. This also means that I would be arriving in Harrisburg at around 7pm to be later

picked up by my aunt. Originally, I was supposed to arrive at Harrisburg at 1pm by lunch time and join my family then. Yet once again, the 5pm departure is the best option because it is the only option, so I have no choice but to take it. "Okay, great. I will send you the email with the new ticket, you should receive it within a few seconds."

"Okay, one more thing sir."

"Uh huh?"

"I also have an Amish couple right here

with me and they also need help rescheduling their trip, I am also calling in their behalf."

"Uh ma'am you will have to call back for that, we can only do one ticket per call."

"Okay sir? I'll call back, thank you."

After this I hang up the phone and immediately try to call back to SwiftWolf. Although I have to admit, I did raise my eyebrow a little when I heard Jeff say that they can only do one ticket per call. But I simply assume that they must have a good reason for it. At this point I still have some degree of hope for this company. As of yet, I do not attribute this measure to a sign of incompetence on the part of this bus company. The email with my new ticket arrives right after ending my call. With all honesty though, as discouraging as this situation is so far, it is good to know what to expect from now and on. Now I know at least how long I will have to wait before continuing on with my trip and at least I have my seat on the next bus ensured. So, I can give SwiftWolf that, I'm still extremely disappointed at the outcome of these events though. No time to think about this fact though, I still have to help out my Amish friends Daniel and Sophia who are now also aware of the situation. As soon as I dial the SwiftWolf customer service number on my phone, that up to this point had an extremely low battery, gives out and dies. During all of this time, I been so distracted with this situation that I failed to take notice of my dying phone. As frustrating as this is, it's all my fault.

So, I immediately grab my backpack and take my phone charger and after looking around for an available outlet, I find one outlet available right by the restrooms, so I plug my phone there and it begins to charge. My phone takes a frustrating long ten minutes to turn back on. Minutes in which I pass literally standing with it on my hands while Daniel and Sophia simply look at me with eagerness and concern, Daniel is literally standing with his ticket at hand looking at me with a concerned expression on his face.

This makes me so sad, but finally

and fortunately, the phone turns on and

as a result, I immediately dial up the SwiftWolf customer service number again in order to help Daniel and Sophia reschedule their trip.

"Hello, thank you for calling SwiftWolf, this is Diana speaking, how can I help you?"

"Hello Diana, I am Tubeppa and our bus

trip has been cancelled."

"Okay, would you like to reschedule or get your money back?"

"I am actually calling in behalf of someone, I already have rescheduled my trip."

"Oh okay, who may that be?"

"Is an Amish couple and their newborn baby."

"Okay, so what are the names of the adults?"

"Daniel and Sophia, those are the names."

"And what is their ticket number?" Daniel passes me the printout of their ticket.

"Their ticket number is [...]"

"Okay, thanks. And where are they going to?" I quickly turn towards Daniel and repeat the question to him, Daniel responds by saying: "Oklahoma, Ohio."

So, after hearing Daniel's response, I address Diana again and tell her: "They are headed towards Oklahoma, Ohio ma'am."

"Okay, it seems that the nearest departure towards Oklahoma, Ohio arrives at Philadelphia at about 8pm today is that okay for you?"

"Wait what! Are you serious about that ma'am?"

"Yes, I have another one coming at 10pm if anything."

"Ma'am (I turn my face away from the phone and proceed to take a deep breath) hold on."

I turn my face away from the phone and turn towards Daniel, in an attempt to block any sound from being heard by Diana’s part and then I tell Daniel:

"Daniel, she says that the nearest bus going towards Oklahoma is arriving here at 8pm."

"What?!"

Daniel looks at me in great shock.

To tell you the truth, I can't tell whether he's overly disappointed or severely shocked, I cannot tell. Daniel than adds: "8pm? But that's the time we were supposed to arrive home."

After hearing this from Daniel, I turn my face back to my phone and begin to address Diana once again.

"Ma'am, do you understand that this

couple has a newborn baby with them, correct?"

"I understand but that's all I can do right now."

Now my voice begins to sound a lot more aggressive and confrontational. "So, you’re telling me that you are expecting this couple to wait for Eight

hours in this bus terminal while… (I get interrupted by Diana.)"

"Ma'am I understand but… (I interrupt Diana.)"

"Yes! I am aware you understand! But how does you understanding this situation help this situation in any way, shape, or form?"

"Ma'am I understand but there's nothing else I can do for you at the moment besides giving them this trip or giving them their money back."

At this point I take my phone away from my face and with my eyes wide opened due to a deep sadness within me, I glance at Daniel. Daniel locks eyes with me as well, he can probably read my expression and he's equally as distraught as I am. No words need to be said, Daniel and Sophia already know. At this point both them and I know that this situation has really gotten out of hand. At this point there's nothing I can really say or do either, the feeling of hopelessness begins to dominate the air around Daniel, Sophia and myself.

There's a middle-aged lady that is standing in our parameters. She has listened to the whole conversation since I have had Diana on the speaker this whole time. She approaches me and asks me: "Excuse me young lady, can I speak to

the agent for a second?"

I turn towards the lady, and I already can tell that this person is not someone to mess around with, so I respond to her by saying: "Sure, ma'am go right ahead."

I then pass the lady my phone and

the lady starts speaking with Diana. "Hello, this is Margaret speaking, I work for the White House, and I have been listening to this whole conversation."

Upon hearing Margaret speak these words, shivers suddenly go down my spinal cord, my spinal juices suddenly feel like they been left in a fridge for a few minutes. Even my skin becomes like that of a chicken and my corporal hairs straighten up in a sudden manner. What a way to escalate things uh? Now we have the Whitehouse of United States involved in this fiasco.

"You do realize that this couple has a newborn child, correct?" Says Margaret to Diana.

"Ma'am, I understand." Diana responds.

"You also understand that you expect this couple with a newborn child to wait for Eight hours under these unsanitary conditions, correct?" Margaret adds.

"Unsanitary conditions?” Diana asks with a worrisome tone on her voice.

"There's literally birds here!" Margaret adds.

Not going to lie, this caught me by surprise. As soon as I hear Margaret mention that there’s birds in this bus terminal, I start looking around the parameters and hold and behold there is a nest of doves right above us, 8 O'clock from us to be specific. I guess birds have a thing for massive bus terminals as well, this is something to take note off. Upon hearing this, Diana replies by saying:

"Ma'am, wait a second please."

While Diana put us on hold for a few seconds, Margaret turns towards Daniel, Sophia and I and says: "This is outrageous."

"I know!" I utter in response to Margaret. Margaret than adds: "If they can't provide their services after you paid for it, then the right thing to do is to pay someone else to do it for you. This company can easily send a taxi here for them to take them where they need to go."

"Yes, they probably make a lot of money, probably enough to send us all in taxies." I say in response to Margaret.

"Yes! They are a Million-dollar company!" Margaret adds.

After Margaret replies to me, Diana comes back. "I am sorry ma'am but there's nothing I

can do but to give them their money back."

"What's your name honey?" Margaret asks Diana.

"Diana ma'am."

After Diana tells Margaret her name, Margaret's voice becomes less confrontational and more passive and reasonable. She lowers the tone of her voice and addresses Diana by saying: "You understand that this is a big deal, right? I will literally take a picture of this couple and send it to the transportation authority; this will come out on the newspapers you know?"

"I understand but… (Margaret interrupts Diana.)"

"But what?!” Margaret's voice suddenly becomes confrontational again. Margaret then adds:

"You're telling me that you can't send a

taxi here to take them home?!"

"Ma'am we can't do that."

"I guess we are going to have to complain then."

"Margaret hold on." I say.

Then after Margaret takes a small pause I turn towards Daniel, and I begin to address him. "Daniel, this is your choice, do you want to take the offer or take your money back?"

Daniel's expression says it all, he

looks distraught and disappointed, his face is completely blanked out of any expression. This is really hard to see, to see such a nice guy in this situation is quite saddening to both Margaret and myself.

"We were supposed to be home at that

time (referring to 8pm), at what time we will be arriving then?"

Margaret utters the same question towards Diana. Diana responds by saying: "You will be arriving at Oklahoma, Ohio at 11am in the morning."

Daniel lets out a deep breath while

his eyes stare down at the floor. Margaret and I are in complete awe of how indifferent this company, SwiftWolf is. As anger begins to accumulate and flow swiftly through Margaret's and my veins and as Margaret and my facial expressions begin to tighten and our eyes slowly begin to turn towards my phone in a pure rage fueled by our desire to help Daniel and his wife, and right before any word comes out of our mouths directed towards my poor cellphone that has done nothing to deserve what’s about to come down upon it, Daniel responds by saying, quelling our rage suddenly and abruptly:

"I guess I'll take it."

Upon saying this, Margaret responds to Daniel by saying: "To be completely honest, you may as

well take it because getting your money back is a process on itself."

Daniel has decided to take

SwiftWolf’s offer, this means that both him and his wife Sophia and his son Jehosaphat are going to remain in this bus terminal for Eight hours until 8pm. Right now, the time is 1:40pm, this

means that both Daniel and Sophia have

a long day ahead of them right now.

"Okay." Says Diana. Then Diana adds:

"I will pass the ticket to you." (referring to me).

Margaret passes my phone back to me. Now it is me talking in the phone. "You can email the ticket to me, and I will ask one of the staff members at the information booth to print out a copy for us."

Diana did just that, the email arrives as soon as I provided Diana with my email. The disappointment we feel at this point is immeasurable. And personally I, I feel heartbroken for Daniel and his family. Upon receiving the email, Daniel and I head towards the information booth where we ask one of the staff members to print it out for us. The staff member is very nice to us, and she prints Daniel's ticket for us. Upon receiving it, I pass the copy of the new ticket to Daniel. Then after we have the copy of the new ticket, both Daniel and I head back to our chair to sit down. In matter of fact, no words came out of either of our mouths for a short while after this sudden turn of events. We all just sit there quietly right besides each other, with our unblinking eyes staring right ahead, right into nothingness. There is nothing to say really, since our silence is speaking louder than any audible words would.

CHAPTER 6
AN INCREDIBLY SEVERE COMMUNICATION ERROR IS DISCOVERED; TUBEPPA'S TUG OF WAR WITH THE SWIFTWOLF BUS CORPORATION

It's been a few minutes already, Daniel, Sophia and I as well as Veronica been sitting here quietly for all of this time. Veronica hasn't really bothered to

call SwiftWolf to reschedule nor her boss

to let him or her know that she will be getting late to work today. She seems to have some sort of motivation issue, because of her lack of motivation to do anything about the situation at hand, because of that, I decide to not bother with her much.

There are some people lining up to get ready to leave on their bus. This bus is departing towards Boston, among them, Margaret, the lady that helped us is among those people. We wave goodbyes from afar and I thank her for all of her help, and she leaves. The people that are headed towards Boston proceed to board their bus and proceed to leave.

Now, the entire waiting room looks a lot emptier, there is still a lot of people here but the place looks a lot more spacious and less packed than before. Time passes by and the place becomes emptier and emptier. The birds which are mostly Doves mentioned earlier that are nesting very close to us, are now flying around the entire waiting area pecking at whatever food items they manage to ger their beaks on.

One person that I can’t help to

ignore is this Caucasian looking individual, he is seating by the left wall a couple of rows ahead of us, he is currently seating in the floor. On his phone, he has an image of the virgin Mary and he is constantly praying to her and giving her respects. He has been doing this for quite a while now and the peer sight of this is of entertainment for both Daniel and I. With all honesty, if some sort of divine deity comes down to our Three-dimensional plane of existence and intervene for us in this situation, I would be praying too. Sadly, with the way Swiftwolf handles it’s buses, the divine being’s bus might have been broken up by now and they themselves are now stuck in some sort of divine bus terminal as well.

“There’s something wrong with him.” Daniel utters.

“He’s probably autistic.” I add in response.

“What makes you think that?” Daniel asks.

“Something about his body movements, they are similar to mines.” I say to Daniel in response.

“What do you mean?” Asks Daniel to me.

“Yea, I am suspected to be an autistic too, it runs in my family.” I respond. Daniel found what I just said to him to be curious. So I then add: “But it is only a suspicion, not an official diagnostic of course, which is backed with a lot of evidence.”

There are also some funny looking individuals who are all the way to the front and they are acting strange, they are yelling out loud and moving franticly. One of them doesn't even have a shirt on. The ambience in this place is what I would refer to calmly chaotic. We are all calm, but it is because we have no other choice but to remain calm. Suddenly though, Daniel breaks the silence: "Hey, how much do we owe you for all the help you given us?"

This catches me off-guard briefly, but I proceed to respond to Daniel: "Bah Daniel, no worries, this one’s on the house."

"No, we insist." Adds Sophia.

"Guys, it's okay, this is not a big deal."

"You did so much for us, here take this."

As a courtesy and because I could

also use some extra cash, I decide to take the money that Daniel and Sophia give me. I do not pay attention to the amount of money they have given me; I really appreciate the gesture from their part and that's what is important. At this point I also go ahead and ask Daniel and Sophia: "What would you guys like to eat?"

Sophia leans in and responds:

"We like fish and we also like chicken as well."

"Is fried chicken fine with you guys?"

"Yes, totally."

"I will go ahead and order it for you bit then."

Sophia and Daniel seem very happy and thankful, and I personally could not be any less fulfilled by this. I love the feeling of being needed and being useful to someone. If anything, in my opinion, this has been the best part of this whole ordeal, to have been able to meet Daniel and Sophia and their son Jehosaphat. I also happen to notice that Daniel and Sophia are running out of water.

There are a few water fountains present in the waiting room, but because of how this place is kept up I want nothing to do with whatever comes out of these pipes and Daniel and Sophia seem to share my feelings about the subject. "Hey, I will go ahead and get some drinks, would you like me to bring you something?"

"You can bring us whatever you like." Sophia says in response to me.

"Let's see, do you like orange juice?

Apple juice? or Grape juice?"

"Orange juice is fine, if not Apple juice."

"Okay, how about the baby?"

"We usually give him yogurt."

"What flavor?"

"Vanilla is fine as well as plain yogurt."

"Okay friends, I'll be back."

After this, I leave the bus terminal

and head right over to the grocery store, once upon arriving, I head right over towards the fridge and get a 2-liter orange juice bottle. I also intent to get

my hands on some yogurts but I can't

find them, so I head over the cash

"Hey, I am looking for the yogurts."

"They are over there in the left wall."

"Thanks."

So, I head right towards the left wall, and I see a good variety of yogurt cups. There is one strawberry yogurt cup as well as some blueberry yogurt cups, there's also one plain flavor yogurt and a cup of Greek yogurt, I decide to grab all of the cups of yogurt except the Greek, that yogurt is way too bitter for the paladar of Nine-month-old child like Jehosaphat. The cashiers are very nice, once I approach the front, the female cashier
asks me: "How are you doing today?"

"If I can sum up this day in one word,

that word would be 'crazy.'"

We all have a laugh at what I just said. These cashiers are probably very familiar to people expressing themselves this way.

"The funny thing is that, this is actually

my first time ever in Philadelphia." I say.

"Oh really?"

"Yes, I think is nice so far aside from my situation right here (I point my thumb finger towards the Philadelphia SwiftWolf bus terminal building as I say these words.)"

"We are glad you feel this way."

"I do have a question though."

"Uh huh?"

"Are people around here as nice as you guys are or are they like New York?"

The cashier while smiling discretely points me towards the direction of the entrance: "Look over there."

I then turn towards the door, and there's

a homeless man lying in the pavement

right in front of the door. He's accompanied by other homeless people that are seating nearby the entrance of the store. Then the cashier points me towards the back of the store: "Look over there. (Now she points me towards the back of the store.)”

Once I turn towards the back, there

is this middle age man that is not looking well, he looks like he under the influence of some narcotic and he's grabbing items in the shelves and dropping some of them in the floor. This man barely has a hold of himself, or so it seems.

"I see now."

"This is what we have to deal with

everyday over here."

"Listen guys, we have to push forward,

that is all I can say right now." We chuckle at what I have said.

"Well guys, it was a pleasure

meeting you."

"Same, see ya!"

From what I can tell, there is a lot

of poverty in this city of Philadelphia, and this is supported by the fact that there are a lot of decrepit buildings in the nearby area as well. When I get back into the bus terminal and I approach Daniel and Sophia, I then proceed to pass them the drink and the yogurts.

"I could not find any other flavors but

these. (referring to the yogurts)"

"It's okay, these will do just fine."

"I also forgot to bring you guys cups."

"That's totally fine, we have our own cups right here."

After giving the couple, the drinks

and snacks, I go ahead and sit down to drink my own juice. Daniel leans towards me and then asks me:

“Hey, can I use your phone for a minute

to make a call?”

“Of course, sure, but we must charge it as you use it to make the call.”

As a result, Daniel and I go ahead

and start looking for a plug to charge my phone in, we immediately turn towards the plugs near our seats that are between the bathrooms. But there is a couple now seating over there and they are currently using both of the plugs in there, they seem to be playing on a Nintendo switch console. So, Daniel and I decide to look elsewhere and not bother them.

It turns out that there is actually an available plug right beside the autistic looking guy that even right now is still praising and praying towards the photo

of the virgin Mary in his phone.

When Daniel and I make an attempt to approach the plug that is right by the autistic man, the autistic man, without saying a single word

proceeds to wave at us and to make pushing gestures to signal us to go away while making random incoherent sounds. As a result, Daniel and I proceed to back away from him because we don’t want to startle him or trigger him in any way. Daniel and I then continue to look around the area and we take notice of an extension cord that is being used by some individuals a few rows ahead of the autistic man who has been praying to the virgin Mary continuously for the past few hours now, confirming my self thought theory that the virgin Mary is probably stuck right now in some unknown divine bus terminal and can’t come to this young man’s aid at this moment. So, Both Daniel and I head towards them and politely ask them: “Hey, can we use one of your plugs really quick?”

“Sure thing, go ahead.”

So, I proceed to plug my phone and it begins charging. Daniel then takes out a piece of paper and shows me a phone number for me to dial up. I tell Daniel: “Is okay Daniel, you can grab my phone.”

But Daniel insists on me dialing up the phone number so I go ahead and dial up the number for him. After the phone starts ringing, and someone picks up, I proceed to pass my phone to Daniel. I then back away to give Daniel his privacy.

Daniel stands there talking to his neighbor on the phone for a few minutes and then after he finishes talking, he hangs up, approaches me and passes me my phone and my charger and says: “Thank you so much.”

“No problem, Daniel.” Daniel and I then go ahead and take our seats again. But there's something that has been bothering me at the moment. It's my updated ticket. When speaking to Jeff, the agent, I made it very specific to him that I am currently located in Philadelphia, despite this, according to the ticket, I am supposably expected to board the bus in New York when it departs later at about 3pm.

The ticket also says that the bus will depart out of New York city at 3pm and according to the ticket the final stop of the bus will be Philadelphia. Maybe I am exaggerating but my dealings with this company have left an extremely bitter taste on my mouth, so in order to make sure that everything is fine, I decide to call back the SwiftWolf customer service number just to check and make sure things are okay: "Good afternoon, this is Rachel speaking, how can I help you?"

"Hi, good afternoon, Rachel, this is Tubeppa and well, what I have today is a long story but to make it short, my trip has been cancelled and I had to renew

my ticket because of it but I have a concern regarding my updated ticket."

"Uh huh?"

"I think the information on my ticket is incorrect."

"Okay, I see ms. Tubeppa, can I get your ticket number?"

"Yes, my ticket number is [...]"

"Okay, so you are supposed to board the bus that departs from New York at 3pm and that's headed to Philadelphia is that correct?"

"No ma'am, you see, I am already in Philadelphia."

I knew it! That guy Jeff made a fatal mistake on my new ticket.

"You see ma'am, I made it very clear to the agent that was renewing my ticket that I was already located in Philadelphia and not in New York and he still decided to schedule me to board the bus in

New York anyways."

"I see, I understand."

"So can you please change my ticket so

that I don't have any problems boarding

the bus towards my destination which is Harrisburg?"

"Unfortunately, no, there's nothing I can do."

This right here, these words are what you call the tipping point for me. This company has absolutely no point on having a customer service number, because all they can do is tell me what

they can't do, they are never able to fully help and when they do help it is at a huge stretch that they do.

"Ma'am, what do you mean by that? What do you mean that there's nothing you can do for me?"

"We can't change the ticket more than

once at a time so, no I can't change the ticket again, sorry."

"Ma’am, do you understand that this was your mistake and not mines?"

"Yes, but there's nothing I can do except

to give you your money back, sorry."

"Ma'am, I am basically stranded here in Philadelphia, a place that I have never been in before and you’re telling me that you can't fix a simple communication

error from your part? Because of some policy you guys have?"

"I understand but once again, there's nothing I can do for you except give you your money back, once again sorry."

This is when I start to become aggravated, this is not normal for me. I am known as a very passive person, I almost never get mad, and I almost never start a show or a ruckus, but today is that one day where all of those changes.

"It is so easy for you to say, 'I understand, I

understand' and then do nothing about it! Let me speak to your supervisor!"

"That's not going to do anything, she is just going to tell you the same thing as I did."

"Ma'am, I don't want to talk to you right now, can I please speak to your supervisor?"

"Okay, you will need to hold for a few minutes then, she is currently busy."

"That's fine."

After this, Rachel puts me on hold for a few minutes, minutes that literally felt like an eternity. At this point I am starting to blush, something that it is not usual for me, this goes to show how mad I have become.

"Hello, how can I help you."

"I need you to please change the information of my ticket because the information in it is incorrect. You see, my trip got cancelled and the agent that originally rescheduled my trip put the incorrect information in it."

"Sorry, we can't do anything for you."

"Ma'am this is your mistake not mines!

Do you understand this?!"

"Yes, ma'am but sorry, all we can do is

give you your money back and you will

have to email customer service for that okay?"

"Email them? I can't call them instead?"

At this point I am trying to figure out what else is there for me to do, as this conversation develops, I am thinking of taking the money back and then immediately booking another trip in order to not remain stranded in Philadelphia.

"No, you can only email them ma'am sorry."

"Okay and how long will it take for them

to respond?"

"About 96 hours."

"Excuse me!! You’re expecting me to wait in this bus terminal for Four days?! I yell to the supervisor in response.

"I am sorry ma'am but that's all we can

do for you."

"Are you crazy? Do you really expect me

to stay in this decrepit place for Four days without a place to sleep or do my necessities?"

"Listen I already told you the options, we can't renew your ticket again and we can only refer you to

customer service, we are only agents, that's all we can do for you. If anything, speak to the manager in the bus terminal to see if he can do something for you."

My breathing has become heavy and very profuse, to tell you the truth, I feel scared. I am essentially trapped in this place, the money I have could help me afford a hotel but not for that long.

This is basically no longer a slight inconvenience; no, not even a severe inconvenience, this situation has fully escalated to a fight for survival.

"Okay, can you please stay online then? While I speak to the manager here?"

"Uh no, that is not within my jurisdiction, there's nothing I can do for you anymore."

It's too late, I am already heading towards the front information booth to address the manager. But the manager agent insists on hanging up. So, as I walk towards the front, I tell the agent: "Ma'am, I feel genuinely sorry for this interaction we are currently having, you see, I'm generally a very nice and friendly and easy going person. But this is the side of me you're going to get and sadly you and I will never speak to each other again for you to see my nice side ever. Thank you for nothing!"

Then I hang up the phone and arrive at the front information desk. Where a stern looking man is seating at. "Hello, can I speak to the manager?"

"I am the manager; how can I help?"

"Listen I am very aggravated right now you see, I am from the bus that broke down earlier, after the trip got cancelled, I called the customer service number to have my trip rescheduled. The agent did just that, but he put the wrong information on my ticket. I called them again just for them to tell me that

there's nothing they can do to fix it. Is
there anything you can do to help me?

Like telling the bus driver that it is okay

to let me in since I already paid for the

trip anyways?"

"No, you're going to have to call them again."

"Listen! They were the ones that told me

to talk to you and now you're sending me back to them?!"

"No ma'am listen to me, I am tired of dealing with this same exact situation. All you have to do, is call them back and instead of asking them to fix the updated ticket, ask them to fix the original ticket and you see that it is going to work. I have to deal with

these people on a daily basis, I know how they work."

While I am breathing profusely and with a slightly tighten face, I respectfully tell the manager:

"Okay, but I will be right back in case of anything."

"Okay."

So, I leave the front desk and head back into my seating area. I then look up through my emails and find my old ticket, the original one and then I dial up the SwiftWolf customer service number one more time. This time, I make sure to take a few deep breaths in order to not be rude to the next agent.

"Hello, thank you for calling SwiftWolf, this is Michelle, how can I help you?"

"Hello Michelle, I'm Tubeppa. My trip has been cancelled and I need to reschedule my trip, can you help me out?"

"Yes of course, give me your ticket number whenever you can."

"Okay, my ticket number is [...]

(I give her the number of the original ticket.)"

"Okay thank you, so your headed towards Harrisburg I see, the next bus to depart Philadelphia towards

Harrisburg will be arriving at your stop at around 5pm, would you like to take that bus."

"Yes! Please, let me take that one!"

"Okay, the email with your updated

ticket should be arriving at your feed soon."

As soon as Michelle said that the email with my new fixed ticket came in. I can't describe the amount of relief I feel once I hear the notification on my phone come in. It genuinely feels like fresh water in a hot day in the desert.

"Thank you so much Michelle, you have no idea how much you have helped me today!"

"It's okay, that's why we are here for."

"No Michelle, literally, you have done more for me than even your own supervisor, thanks a lot, you are the best."

After this I hang up the phone, and finally, for after a long while, I can breathe peacefully now. So, right now is about to be 4pm and my bus should

arrive at this station at around 5pm. If everything goes well from here and on, I should be arriving at Harrisburg at about 7pm.

I take my seat right besides Daniel, Sophia, Jehosaphat and Veronica and all I can do is lean on my seat and let all of the stress that I just experienced out one deep breath at the time. The manager guy was right, and to think that he has to deal with this sort of deal every day, makes me think of how stressful working in this environment must be.

CHAPTER 7

THE FINAL CURVE BALL HITS: AN ALTERNATIVE SOLUTION NEEDS TO BE CONSIDERED

About an hour has gone by. While I am sitting down in my seat besides Daniel and Sophia, I notice that the couple that is currently using the plugs that are between the bathrooms are now playing with the same video game console I am currently playing with, both the boyfriend and the girlfriend are playing on their own consoles. Seeing these sparks my curiosity and I decide to go and

approach the couple to check what are they playing. They are currently playing a multiplayer fighting crossover game that is very popular. I stay watching them for a couple of seconds and then proceed to ask them: “That model of the switch, is that the new OLED model?”

“Yes, it’s pretty neat.”

“I can see that, my model is the Lite model, I got it thinking that it would be best since I don’t always use my TV.”

“Yea, but the OLED model has longer battery and better graphics.”

“I see, what other games you got there?”

The boyfriend proceeds to go to the home screen and show me his games.

“What do you think of ‘that’ game? (referring to an open world action-adventure game that we both have)”

“This game? This game is amazing, I been playing this series ever since I was a kid.”

“Yea, I heard the sequel is going to come out soon.”

“Yes, can’t wait.”

“Where are you guys headed to?”

“We are headed towards North Carolina, and is going to be a few hours before our bus arrives.”

“I see, no better way to spend the time than to play video games with your favorite person in the world, right?”

“You got it!”

After this nice interchange I go back to my seat and begin to scroll my social media again in my phone. As I am seated alongside my friends Daniel and Sophia and their Nine-month-old baby Jehosaphat as well as my travel buddy Veronica once again, I observe from afar in the electronic billboard that my bus has been delayed. This is something worthy of concern but not something that is unusual. Delays happen all the time and it is normal in the transportation industry. Despite this, my inner incline impulses me to go right towards the information booth in the front and have a quick chat with the manager. Because of this, I turn towards my friend Daniel and tell him:

"I'll be right back; can you once again watch over my stuff?"

"Yes of course, go right ahead." Daniel Says.

So, I get up from my seat and start walking toward the front desk in order to inquire to the manager who previously helped me with my ticket renewal problem about my upcoming bus. This is when I notice that the manager of the bus terminal appears to have his hands quite full right now at the moment. This large family is currently having an intense back and forth with him and a driver of a soon to depart bus. It appears that the bus driver is refusing to let them into her bus. A conflict such as this merits the assistance of the terminal's manager who has to physically stop the matriarch of the family from doing something reckless.

While this goes on, I decide to go remain in the front while the manager guy takes care of that matter. And the minutes go on, and during all of this time, I continue to peek at the billboard and my bus shows that it is still delayed. Now upon seeing this I am becoming even more concerned. As the situation with the family continues to escalate, more staff members need to get involved in the matter, it appears that the family is not being allowed in because of some issue with their ticket, probably what was going to happen to me if I didn't act quick enough and had it fixed for a second time.

For a brief time, the manager got away from the ruckus, and I manage to briefly approach him by leaving my spot in the front and proceed to ask him: "Hey, I have a quick question."

"You're going to have to wait, I have a matter to take care of right now." Says the manager.

"Yea, I can see, do what you have to do, I’ll continue to wait here." I respond.

Once I turn back to head towards the information desk, I notice that now there is a line. Since I was the first one to be there, I tell the people in the line:

"Guys, I already was here to begin with, I just went to check something with the manager."

This young Latinx guy that is standing last in the line replies by saying: "Yeah right, that what they all say, just wait your turn like everyone else."

This guy is also accompanied by two other guys around his age, but that matters little to me. Because of all of the stress that I have had to endure so far today, it has become quite easy to trigger me. So, I

turn towards this young man and respond: "You fool! Do you want a piece of me or what?"

Right as I say this, the guy turns towards his friends, and they begin to laugh mockingly at me, but thankfully right before I get into a fight of my own, creating yet another ruckus for the staff of this terminal to worry about, Mark interrupts and tells them that I was in fact there before everyone else, Mark is on the line as well, just a little ahead. So, I am given the green light to go right back towards the front.

After a while the large family has to leave and they storm out of the bus terminal. This situation has given them a bad look, but the sad truth is that that family is also a victim of the terrible customer service of this company. The manager heads back towards

his seat in the information booth and of course, the bus driver that was also involved in the back and forth with the family, also directs everyone else who is boarding her bus to proceed to board her bus, among them, the autistic guy that was previously and continuously praying and worshiping the virgin Mary photo is also there. My best wishes to him.

Once the manager calls for the next person to help, I am the first one who gets to have her inquiry. So, I greet the manager and ask: "Hey, my bus, the one ending with the numbers [...] has been delayed for longer than half an hour now. My bus

was supposed to arrive by 5pm. What happened?"

"Oh, that bus has been cancelled, you are going to have to reschedule again."

At this point, I am not even mad anymore. To tell you the truth, this is to be expected, we are talking about SwiftWolf after all. I don't even bother to argue with the manager, because I know that it is

not his fault, so I head back towards my seat and pull up my phone. Once again, I dial up the customer service number of the SwiftWolf corporation, for one final time. Apparently, the bus got cancelled because of the rain. Just another puny excuse really.

"Hello, thank you for calling SwiftWolf my name is… (Interrupted)"

"Listen to me, I am your best friend today and I am being dead serious when I say that." I say to the operator.

"Uh huh?"

"My trip has been cancelled two times within a single day, I was supposed to take the bus heading towards Harrisburg at 5pm today!"

"The bus got cancelled because of the severe rain."

"When is the next upcoming bus heading towards Harrisburg arriving at Philadelphia?"

"Our next bus heading towards Harrisburg will arrive at Philadelphia today at 11pm and the next one after

that will arrive tomorrow at 6am, which one will you choose?"

"You know what? Forget it! Just tell me how to get my money back."

"I am sorry for the inconvenience; all you have to do is to email at our customer support email that is present in your ticket, and they will instruct you

on what to do next."

"Okay thank you."

After this, I hang up this number for one final time. Honestly, I feel like I am stuck in a loop here. I feel so tired of this. So, I dial up my aunt who lives

in Harrisburg.

"Hey Tubeppa how are you? Is everything okay? Are you on your way already?"

"No, they cancelled my bus again, is it possible that you can pick me up from here?"

"Of course, Harrisburg is about an hour away from Philadelphia so I will let you know once I am nearby, okay?"

"Okay, I am sorry about this."

"No is okay, we had to pick up a cousin of mines one time too because the same thing happened to him, those buses are terrible."

"I appreciate it aunty, I will wait for you here."

I also take a look at my ticket and

see the customer support email in the bottom of the ticket, but in the end, I opt to wait till tomorrow to deal with that process, because with all honesty, I am

way too tired right now. Essentially now, all I have to do is

to wait for my aunt to arrive from Harrisburg to the Philadelphia bus terminal. That ride will take her approximately one hour, time that I decide to spend with my friends Daniel and Sophia.

CHAPTER 8
IN THE END, MEETING YOU GUYS WAS WORTH THE ORDEAL

After calling my aunt and being assured that she is already on the way, I can finally feel like everything should be fine now. My aunt is still about an hour away aside from any traffic condition so I still going to have to wait. Today is Wednesday June 14th, my friends usually have gatherings on

Wednesdays and today we have an art class, so I decide to bring out my tablet and tune into the meeting. Daniel takes notice of me being

part of an online meeting. Since I am in an unfamiliar place and to be honest, my appearance is not the best, because of this, I decide to keep my camera off, while I just listen to the discussion at

hand. Because I notice Daniel looking at the meeting, I allow him to take a look as well.

"Waw, you could see everybody there."

"Yes, this is a live meeting, they are all logged into their computers as we speak."

The meeting goes on for like about Thirty minutes and then it ends. As Daniel, Sophia and Jehosaphat are seating in our seats, some of the passengers that are originally from my bus are getting together, in a matter of fact, everyone seems to be grouping. One of them, the Turkish looking guy that asked me if I could share my hotspot with him earlier during the bus ride comes over to me and asks me: "Hey, where are you going?"

"I am headed towards Harrisburg why?"

"We are getting together, we are thinking

of paying an Yuper ride (company name kept confidential) to take us there, want to join us?"

"Not really, I already called my aunt and she's already on her way here to pick me up, so no thanks."

"No problem, we are only trying to figure out how much it will cost."

"Get ready to pay over $100 dollars at best."

"Yup."

"How about you Veronica?"

"No thanks, I already called my cousin, he is also on his way to pick me up as well, I called him a long while ago."

"Ah I see, so you were quiet this whole time waiting for him."

"Something like that."

"Cool, I'm glad you got things under

control Veronica." I tell Veronica in response.

At this point we are starting to get hungry, so I decide to finally order some food for Daniel and Sophia and something on the side for me. The reason I have waited until now is because I been planning to purchase food for them to last them until 10pm, Daniel and Sophia already had something to munch on earlier. Provided by some of the co-riders of this bus, God is truly blessing this couple.

So, I go online and order a large order of fried chicken, mashed potatoes and corn in the cob for them, the order is scheduled to be delivered here in about 20 minutes. As for me, I decide that I should

wait a little, just because I want to be ready to pick up the delivery for Daniel and Sophia, when I start eating, I don't like being bothered.

Veronica gets up and heads over to the grocery store and picks up a cheese pie, this pizza pie doesn't look as appetizing as the first pie she ate earlier, but she seems to be enjoying it.

When I look in my app to see the status of my food order, I see that the delivery driver is also a Colombian woman with a similar appearance to

mines. This would make a great small

chat between her and I. When the notification of my food being delivered comes in, I immediately head towards the side of the bus terminal facing Filbert and wait for the driver there. The lady arrives in

her car alongside another woman who is

the one who gives me the food. I pass her a $2 dollar tip and head back inside. It appears the driver doesn’t want to chat anyways. With Daniel, Sophia and Jehosaphat being taken care of, I decide that in the end, I want to try out that Cheese pie from the grocery store that Veronica tried out earlier, so I head right over to the grocery shop where I greet

the cashiers once again for one last time. "Hey guys, we meet again."

"Hello!"

"I heard you guys sell whole Pizza pies here."

"Yes, you can pick the one you want from over there in the frozen section."

I see, so they sell the frozen Pizzas

and also offer to heat it up for you on the spot, neat. So, I head right over to the frozen section and pick myself a nice round plain Cheese Pizza pie and bring it to the cash register. The male cashier

grabs the pie and puts it inside of an oven for a few minutes. After the time is up, he grabs the pie and puts it inside of a box displaying the store name and gives it to me, I end up paying around $5 dollars for all of their effort which is essentially a steal in New York terms. Before I walk out of that grocery store, knowing that this is indeed the last time, I tell the cashiers: "It was a pleasure meeting you guys, until next time!"

"Until next time!"

I then quickly head into the bus terminal with my food and sit down alongside my companions and start eating alongside them. By this point an hour has already passed, so I decide to call my aunt, only after I am done eating this pie. To be completely honest though, this pie is not that good. The cheese has no taste, this Pizza literally has no seasoning, I could see myself enjoying this but only if I was really hungry but right now, I don't really like this pie. Despite this, I wind up eating almost half of the pie, leaving the rest inside of its box. I offer some to Daniel and Sophia to see if I can get this pie off my hands, but they don't want it. So, I start looking around the parameters to see if there's a homeless man nearby and hold and behold, there is one sleeping in the floor not very far away from us. So, I decide to stand up and in order to not disturb the man, I place the pizza inside its box besides him while he sleeps.

But he notices and wakes up. As a result of the homeless man waking up, I tell him: "I am sorry sir; I am just putting this Pizza here for you to eat later."

"Uh? Oh, thanks."

"It might get cold soon but I see that there's a

microwave right there near you so I guess you could use it to heat it up later."

"Yes, don't worry about it, I appreciate it."

The homeless man starts eating the pie right away, no heating needed. With the Pizza now being taken care off and my belly being filled again, I decide to give my aunt a quick call.

"Hello? Hey honey! What's up?"

"Nothing, just checking where you are

right now."

"I came across some traffic, but I should

be there in a couple of minutes, I will call you when I'm in the area."

"Okay!"

After briefly talking to my aunt, I

turn towards Daniel. "Hey Daniel! My aunt is almost here, I need to start getting ready. Are you guys going to be okay from now and on?"

"Yes, everything should be under control from here and on, thanks."

"Is there a way you guys can let me know that you made it home safe?"

"We don't really have access to phone services the same way you guys do, but I can certainly write you a letter once we get back home."

"That sounds great!"

"Can you write your address here?" Daniel asks.

"Sure thing."

Daniel passes me a piece of paper where I write all of my information, my address, my phone number and my full name. Then I give the paper back to Daniel and I have him check if he can understand my handwriting, because spoiler alert, my handwriting is not that great. After a few short minutes my aunt calls me, I pick up the phone and ask: "Hey, hello, are you here?"

"Yes, come out we are driving down Filbert."

"Okay!"

After this, I turn towards Daniel

and Sophia one last time. "Guys! This is it; I am out of here."

Daniel gets up and we have a nice handshake. "Thank you so much for your help. It

really means a lot. Have a safe trip." Daniel Says to me.

"It was nothing, I guess it was a good thing that I was here after all, that's what I think, who knows? Maybe God decided to bring me here to be of help to you guys."

"Who knows."

I also turn towards Sophia and handshake her as well. I also say goodbye to their baby Jehosaphat. After this, I turn towards Daniel one last time

and say to him: "Don't forget that letter! I'll be waiting for it!"

"I won't." Daniel utters as the distance between us begins to increase. After this, I walk out of the bus terminal for one last time, literally to see my aunt waiting for me right there. She waves at me from her car and I run towards it and get in on the back seat,

after we briefly greet, we drive off, right towards Harrisburg. Veronica left a while ago without telling us. She left her Pizza box right there on her chair, maybe as a parting gift. Daniel and Sophia will have to remain in the bus terminal until 10pm

when their bus heading towards Oklahoma will pick them up. They should be arriving tomorrow at 11am with God's help. About an hour into the car drive,

while my aunt and her friend are chatting with my family back in Colombia, I lean in the back seat and while reflecting on this whole ordeal I think to myself:

"Yup, I guess meeting them as in Daniel and Sophia was worth the ordeal after all." Although I feel sad that I could not find them a better alternative, I feel relieved at the fact that I did everything I could possibly do for them, they are in God's hands now and I know those are indeed very good hands to be in.

DANIEL’S LETTER

Is been about two months now since the events of Wednesday July 14^th. At this point I am already been back from my trip to my aunt’s place in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania. On my way back we used another more efficient taxi service that leaves you right in front of your house, which is great and is even a lot cheaper. Sadly, for the purposes of this novella, a good service means no story at all since an entertaining story must have some sort of conflict.

So, no crazy inconveniences on my way back to New York, besides almost being involved in a car crash near the poll leading towards New York City, but that was not the driver’s fault. At this point I been thinking about Daniel’s letter, whether he has

forgotten to write it or if it is simply taking a while

to get here. The other night, after I arrived from my new job at popular bookstore in upper east side of Manhattan, I noticed a very neat looking envelope laying on the table with my name on it.

Upon seeing the sender’s name: “Daniel,” I knew I was in for awesome reading time. You see, receiving a letter from someone, although no longer the best way to communicate from a distance, it does still make you feel special in a way. So, I headed towards my room and opened up the envelope to reveal the handwritten document. This is Daniel’s letter. This is what it says:

Dear friend,

Greetings of love in the name of our dear lord. This leaves me Sunday afternoon another nice day again. Well, I wonder how these poor but well-meant lines

finds you, hope good or letter where needed!

Here you would find it as good I would

ask for. Very much to thank the good

Lord for. First of all, I want to apologize

for not writing you a letter sooner, but I guess I am not a big letter writing man and the work is busy around here.

Which I think is also good to have. But I think letter writing is also good thing. Yes, we got on the bus at 10:35pm and went out of Philadelphia, PA. It was also late again but we had satisfaction from there and on. In Pittsburg PA, we changed bus and kept on rolling. Thank you very much for all your effort

you put in to help us, the food you got us and everything it was also worth and very much appreciated. And thanks again, well I don’t know what else you would like to know, so I might hang up for you by sending best wishes to you, now and

always.

Written by

Daniel and Sophia,

Jehosaphat and children.

Up to this day I haven’t written back to them, but that is going to change to soon. With the arrival of this book to your shelves, you can be reassured that Daniel and Sophia will get their own copies, accompanied with some nice words from my part. Who knows? Perhaps I myself will update you by means of my blog about any further correspondences between Daniel, Sophia and I.

BRIEF MESSAGE FROM THE AUTHOR

Hello there! It seems like you have reached the final part of this novella. Hats off to you my beloved reader. Because you have taken your time to pick up my book, not only that, but you also took the extra time to read through this humble manuscript, I feel that I must reward your efforts in some way or another. The best way to do that from my part is, if not the only way to do that is to stretch my Flexor muscles, as well as my Extensor muscles and type this brief but meaty message for you.

First of all, let’s begin by explaining what inspired the creation of this novella in the first place. You see, us writers and by extension, artist in general whether they are visual or music oriented can all agree to the fact that we are known opportunist.

Artists are always carrying their medium with them. If we are dealing with a visual artist, they either carry their sketchbooks with them or if they are fancy, their drawing tablets. Music artists as well, some of them carry their instruments around, hats off to them, but most of them have also their trusty tablet or computer with them. Us writers as well, in a matter of fact, I believe we writers have it easy compared to other artists since you can write pretty much on anything now a days. Some of us like to carry our journals or notebooks, you call it. Most of us however always have our smartphones handy as well as, you guessed it, our tablets or laptops. Now you may ask, “why am I explaining all of this?”

Well, the truth is that all of us artists, no matter the medium, are always looking for inspiration. We are always thinking about what our next artistic detour will be and sometimes inspiration can come in the form of either adversity or in most cases, inconveniences. I have the strong belief that us

artist are simply built different, at the very least, some of us are. You see, at some point while still in the middle of all of this drama, while I still was in the middle of a rollercoaster of emotions and thoughts, my artistic voice in the back of my head uttered these simple but profound words: “You know what? This could make a great story for a book.”

No writer can resist the sound of these words, once a writer’s mind concludes that a certain topic is book worthy, there is no going back, words will be typed. Mugs of coffee will be consumed. And most importantly, books will in fact be written. I concluded that I wanted to tell this story pretty much in the middle of all this drama, and once I was in the safety of the comfort of a bed, I was already scheming my next artistic detour. Once I was finally

back home from my trip to my aunt’s house in Pennsylvania, it was game on.

This book was written in two attempts. Originally, I thought of Five chapters which then became Eight. But there was a problem. When I first sat down to type down the first manuscript of what has now become Frustration, I was still very angry and upset. This certainly left its mark on the original manuscript making it more like a 100-page long complaint rather than a fully fletched story. Because of that, I decided to give myself some time away from this situation and this ended up in me venturing into other projects such as: “A Gift Of Happiness” which at the moment of writing this book is still not published. After I had fully emotionally healed, I decided to pick up Frustration again and re-write the whole thing from the beginning. So, in the end, I ended up writing this book twice, which is not a rare thing in the world of writing. The writing process of this novella was fun and very fast paced. Although my first manuscript was extremely flawed and not book worthy, it served as an excellent reference which in the end, helped speed up the writing process of this book dramatically. In the end, writing this second manuscript took me about a week and if you sum up the hours, it took me about 27 to 28 hours to fully type it out and perhaps another week and a half to edit it. Now let’s talk about some of the characters presented in this book.

Talking about what inspired them is complicated in this instance, since pretty much all of them were either real people or real people that got gender flipped and received a name change. So, I guess I could do some commentary on them and what I think of them. Tubeppa is essentially me as stated earlier. Why did I decide to replace myself with Tubeppa? Because doing so makes it easier for me to write this novella. For some reason, I feel that making a whole book in which I am the main character is a rather narcissistic approach. I mean, this manuscript is over 200 pages (initially) long so imagine me handing this book to my friends, family and acquaintances and telling them that I am the main character of it. Something about that doesn’t sound right to me. I am not saying that making yourself the main character of your own story is a bad thing. I have seen some successful authors take that approach and they have executed it rather well. For reference, “The Enigma of room 622” written by: Joel Dicker, has the author of the book as its main character, and from what I heard, the book is really good. Except that I am yet to read it as of yet, but I do have my hardcover copy handy to read anytime. But that approach doesn’t really ring well for me. Despite this, Tubeppa’s thought patterns and behavior is exactly the same as mines. If you are curious how Tubeppa looks, you can check out the online version of this manuscript in my blog, there I put a drawing of Tubeppa that I made. Another reason why changing places with Tubeppa is a good

idea is because in the future I might choose to adapt this novella into a short graphic novel. And as you

can see, drawing myself is not really fun for me, especially for a whole graphic novel, I am not a bad looking guy at all, but trust me, I don’t want to draw myself for that many pages. Lastly about Tubeppa, her name is taken from my favorite manga series, “Hunter X Hunter” by Yoshihiro Togashi. Despite its many hiatuses the story featured in that manga is one of the best in the medium. The name Tubeppa originates from that story and I liked it so much that I decided to borrow that name for my own character. Veronica is a gender flipped version of the real-life person that was my travel buddy during the ordeal presented in this book. After the events of this novel, him and I lost contact, I still had him on my phone but I had no reason to call him again. So in the end I deleted his number and subjected him to memory.

Veronica is a one-to-one adaptation of him and of what he did that day, besides that, the character is not really that remarkable, best wishes to him. Daniel and Sophia are what made the book for me. Seriously, if it wasn’t for them, Frustration would probably not be a thing. I am glad that I met them and interacted with them during the events presented in this novel and I hope that they are doing well. As stated, before I am planning to contact them, but after I have published this book. My only way of communication with Daniel and Sophia is through letters, so our correspondences will take time. I can’t wait to see or better say, read their reaction of them being adapted into a book. Of course, only their names have been revealed, nothing else for safe keeping of course. When the graphic novel adaptation comes, their appearances will be completely different from their real-life counterparts in order to protect their privacy. There were many side characters mentioned in this book, many of them not even named. One last thing, the agents’ names where obviously changed, they never really make a physical appearance in the story and we only get to experience them through the phone so I think I am fine in that department. Finally, and this time is for real, as of right now I am getting ready to work on my next few projects. This will take me some time of course but if you want to keep yourself posted with my artistic detours, you can follow me on my Instagram.

Thank you so much once again for picking up this humble manuscript, may we meet again, yes, you and I, in the pages of my next manuscript.

Best,

Franklin C.

FRUSTRATION (KINDLE Edition): FRUSTRATION - Kindle edition by CAMPUSANO, FRANKLIN. Literature & Fiction Kindle eBooks @ Amazon.com.

FRUSTRATION (Paperback Edition): FRUSTRATION: CAMPUSANO, FRANKLIN: 9798328805902: Amazon.com: Books

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