Homecoming

The city is the same and not quite.
I'm renegotiating the roads with all the improvised one-way routes. I've felt like an idiot boxed up in my car, counting down with the sadistic traffic signal timers. 149 seconds of watching pedestrians glide across zebra stripes on tarmac.

I've noticed that young conclusions have suddenly disappeared. All the teenyboppers in Blr seem to be wearing their backpacks ridiculously low. Bottompacks they should now be called.

I've watched cigarette stall owners strike matches for women without flinching. This sort of behaviour is the kind I now make note of after life in a non-metropolitan.

There are more women bus conductors now. They shout at men who slip into ladies' seats. They throw back their long braid as they make mysterious ticketing notes. They push one off the bus when one has missed the right stop because the bus routes have changed because of all the one-ways.

People are the same and not quite.
They've grown. I've grown. And a forked path has made me take a diversion.
Reunions here are more exasperating than the traffic.