SWARTHOS

When I was a mere seven years old, a feral little beast navigating the cruel asphalt jungles of childhood, I rode a rattling yellow beast of a school bus, a rolling crucible of dreams and doom. On that cursed chariot, there was a girl—Yolanda, a vision, a siren, a goddess of the back seat who scorched my soul with a crush that burned like cheap whiskey in a parched throat. She haunted the long bench at the rear, her throne, her sacred domain, where she’d lounge like some untamed queen of the road.

In a fit of genius, I hatched a plan, a scheme as bold as a mescaline-fueled rampage: I’d commandeer that bench seat, stake my claim early, force the fates to align so Yolanda, my desert rose, would have no choice but to sit beside me. I boarded that bus like a warrior, heart pounding like a war drum, and plopped myself on that hallowed vinyl, waiting, sweating, my seven-year-old psyche vibrating with the electric hum of impending glory. The world was mine, the dice were rolling, and I could feel the cosmic jackpot within reach.

Then she appeared. Yolanda, striding down the aisle like a gunslinger, her eyes locking onto mine with the cold precision of a hawk spotting a quivering rodent. My blood surged, my brain dissolved into a psychedelic haze, and I was melting, man, melting into the seat like some doomed acid casualty. My heart thundered, a V8 engine redlining, and I was lost in the kaleidoscope of her gaze. But then—oh, the horror, the savage twist of fate—she spoke, her voice a razor slicing through my fragile dream: “Get out of my seat, boy. Move someplace else.”

The universe imploded. The weight of a thousand suns crushed my tiny frame. The hair on my neck stood like electrified quills, and I was drowning, man, underwater in a sea of shame, my soul shrieking as I staggered to my feet, a humiliated wretch, slinking to another seat like a beaten dog. The bus roared on, but I was gone, lost in a nightmare spiral, the laughter of cruel gods echoing in my ears. Yolanda, my muse, my tormentor, had cast me into the abyss, and I never spoke to her again. That moment, that brutal, bone-crushing defeat, clings to me still, a heavy, jagged scar on the wild, battered heart of a dreamer who dared to chase the untouchable. Mayhem and Mania on the school bus, man—pure, unfiltered, and eternal.