Eine Winterreise
Feb. 1st, 2026 08:40 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
ndrosenThursday evening, I was coming home from the Patent Office, wearing a backpack, and carrying a bag with my laptop and various papers therein. At the Pentagon City station, where I got off, an A40 bus was supposed to come by in nine minutes (according to the display in an electronic sign). A woman told me that it had been supposed to arrive in two minutes, but then that announcement had disappeared. I decided to walk to a bus stop about a third of a mile away, where I might catch an A40 bus or the F-something bus.
I waited a bit, and two other men joined me. We waited, and an A40 bus came by, but didn’t stop; it was very crowded, and did not seem to be taking new passengers. I said that I had had enough, and would walk home. It was over a mile, and the going was rough, as there were patches of cleared sidewalk, patches of snowy sidewalk with an icy crust on the snow, hillocks of snow to claim, and so forth. The temperature was below freezing, and there was wind. I walked and walked, and a few blocks before the sidestreet to my apartment building, I saw two buses come by, an A40 and an F-something.
I finished the walk, and got home after ten o’clock. I wasn’t comfortable, but I think it was just as well that I did walk home, since I was doing something to achieve my goal, instead of standing there stewing, while the possible future arrival of a bus was outside my control.
The Chosin Few would not have been impressed by my endurance.
I waited a bit, and two other men joined me. We waited, and an A40 bus came by, but didn’t stop; it was very crowded, and did not seem to be taking new passengers. I said that I had had enough, and would walk home. It was over a mile, and the going was rough, as there were patches of cleared sidewalk, patches of snowy sidewalk with an icy crust on the snow, hillocks of snow to claim, and so forth. The temperature was below freezing, and there was wind. I walked and walked, and a few blocks before the sidestreet to my apartment building, I saw two buses come by, an A40 and an F-something.
I finished the walk, and got home after ten o’clock. I wasn’t comfortable, but I think it was just as well that I did walk home, since I was doing something to achieve my goal, instead of standing there stewing, while the possible future arrival of a bus was outside my control.
The Chosin Few would not have been impressed by my endurance.
