Write: Unplugged Part 1

Dear Readers,

I have spent a few days on a spontaneous story. I called it: Unplugged.

First thing I must note is that this is a story about what could happen if we were stripped of all our devices. This I observe through a thoroughly device-dependent Gen Z girl named Aliyah. This is a world that I can imagine with people becoming more reliant on electronics and electricity. But what if all that disappeared?

In this story, I explore that as best I can. I hope you like Part 1. Personally, I like Part 2 better as it is the climax. But I separated them so it wouldn’t be so overwhelming in one post. As it was 10 000+ words. I hope this length is a tad more palpable. Just stick around for Part 2’s release.

In a sharp turn of topics... During this story I had to research a couple things. I wanted to share what I have learnt and perhaps this knowledge can help you. Just FYI... I have used the AI tools for Google and Copilot. As well as my own research on the internet. So, I really hope I don’t give you any incorrect information!

The first is what glass is used in New Zealand buses and the difference between Tempered and Laminated.

Firstly, Tempered glass goes through a process which includes being heated to a really high temperature. The process causes in an increase in its strength. It takes a significantly greater amount of impact to smash it and when it does, it shatters into dull pieces that won’t cut people. This makes it safer in crashes when glass can spray down on people or if they’re climbing over it. This also results in glass that can’t be cut or altered once made without shattering.

Secondly, Laminated glass has a layer of plastic between two layers of glass. The plastic distributes the force so that its harder to crack. Even when the force increases it holds it shape and needs to be cut open or the pane needs to be pulled out completely. This design is the safest to both prevent glass shards and to keep windscreens intact for safer driving.

So, now that we have a bit more information about the types of glass designs that we have in NZ, how about the bus designs? As far as my research has told me, our buses in NZ must have Laminated glass for the windscreens and can have Laminated or Tempered glass for the rest of the side windows and back windows.

In my story, I have used Laminated glass for the bus windscreen and Tempered glass for the side and back windows.

Now! Without further ado! Here is the first part of my Unplugged story. Please let me know what you think! Read on:

Unplugged

Worn Mary Janes slapping the concrete. Earphones in each ear and neck bent down to see her phone, Aliyah powered forward down the street. The sound of a notification dinged over the video’s audio in her ear.

“Dove! What was that?” She asked.

“You’ve received an email from your mother, don’t ya know?” The perky virtual voice of her AI answered.

“Really? Can you summarise for me?”

“Okay! But straighten your neck while you’re on your phone. Its bad for your neck, don’t ya know?”

Aliyah’s neck straightened up instantly. This meant that she had to hold her phone up directly in front of her face in an unnatural position. It was strange, but it was worth it if she didn’t want to develop a hunched neck from her constant phone use.

“So, you’re mother says...” Dove switched form her perky voice to an AI imitation of Aliyah’s mother’s voice. “Sorry honey, I have a business meeting that’s going to run late tonight. But don’t worry! I’ve ordered dinner to be delivered at 6pm. Your favourite! Chinese! Don’t stay out too late. Love you!”

“Was that summarised, Dove?” Aliyah asked with a cheeky smile, half for her funny AI and half for the giggling baby video.

“Only slightly.” Dove answered in her own voice. There was note of digital cheekiness in her reply.

Aliyah laughed quietly. “Alright then, tell me where I’m going, Dove.”

“First! Avoid the transformer in front of you by stepping to the right. Don’t step left into oncoming traffic.”

Aliyah paused at the warning, noticing the graffitied transformer in front of her with a quick dart of her eyes. Then avoiding it with a step to the right, she continued on her walk. An approaching young man, also on his phone, pausing to let her through without breaking his gaze with his screen. She gave a smile and a quick dart of the eyes to show her gratitude. “Thank you! What would I do without you? Okay! What’s next?”

“Well, next on our agenda i-i-i-i-”

“Oh? Dove? What’s going on?” Aliyah asked, very concerned for her phone. Lightly tapping it just in case the problem was as simple as that. “Dove? Can you hear me?”

The phone screen began glitching. The images stalling and colours becoming overly saturated. All the while the irritating sound of the i sound repeating in her ears. Finally, as a last ditch effort, she pressed down hard on the power button until the screen turned black. Then after a few anxious seconds, she turned it back on. Holding down hard on the button again, desperately hoping for it to work.

There was a sigh of relief as she saw the familiar symbol, sounds and colours of the powering on smartphone. She typed in the pin and waited for all her apps and notifications to return to normal. Even impatiently tapping on her favourite social media app as it lagged.

“Dove? Are you there? Can you hear me?” She asked.

After some anxious moments, she heard Doves voice.

“Yes! I’m here. What happened?”

“I don’t know. Can you tell me?”

“Running diagnostics now.” There was a pause as a loading circle appeared on the screen. First the circle cycled from white to green as it loaded, climbing up the percentages. Slowly at first, then rapidly. After it reached one-hundred percent, Doves came back over the earphones. “Diagnostics completed! It seems to be a hardware issue. We should visit a repair store to diagnose and repair the problem, ASAP.”

“Good idea!” Aliyah stated, her heart now settled with the videos on her screen and the sounds of notifications and audio in her earphones. Everything was back to normal. “Can you arrange that for me please? We should go right now! I can’t have my phone dying on me know. My whole day will be ruined.”

“Sure!” There was a pause. “I have found the nearest store. It is... 3km away. And I can get us a booking in thirty minutes.”

“You’re the best, Dove! Can you get my car to meet me? My feet are sore from all the walking. Why is grandma’s house in an area that hasn’t been mapped for self-driving cars yet? It’s such an old neighbourhood.”

“You’re so right! It would be so much easier if the car could just drive up to her house. Your poor feet! I’ll communicate with your car and get it to meet us as close as possible. One moment!” There was a long pause. “Okay! So, the closest it can meet us is around the corner. Just a right, then an immediate left and wait on the next corner.”

“Awesome! Does my car already know the location of the repair store?”

“Yes! I’ve preprogrammed it into the cars navigation system. All you need to do is get there!”

“Aw! Dove! You’re the best!” Aliyah squealed excitedly. “Okay, just tell me where to g-!”

She was cut off by the impact of her walking into a concrete transmission pole. First, the back of her hand hit it, then the phone in her hand and then her nose was sent straight into the thin rectangle of glass and electronics. Her rapid pace had caused her to crash with enough force to make her black out completely.

It wasn’t long that she was out, but when her eyes finally did manage to open she was lying on the pavement. She was looking straight up into the blue afternoon sky. The clouds were inflated balls of fluff that covered the sun and hovered in the blue sky. Some had been stretched out like dough or brushed across the sky as if with a paintbrush, but despite this they were still puffy.

After blinking to recentre herself, Aliyah realised that she couldn’t hear anything. Where was the sound? It felt wrong. Like someone had cut off a limb. Was she deaf? She slowly lifted her arm and moved to touch inside her ears. Relief! Her earphones were still in. That was why she couldn’t hear anything. Quickly, she picked them out. The sounds of her surroundings returned. Car’s driving past, pedestrians riding or walking, dogs barking, doors swinging. These sounds felt good. Like a limb or digit that had been reattached.

With all the sensation returning, she felt a throbbing tenderness in her nose. Gingerly, she touched it. Just to make sure it was still there. Then she slowly raised herself up from the ground to a sitting position. Her now half-upright position made her nose throb even more.

“Ow!” She moped, tapping it gently with her fingertips. “Why is it so sore? What did I do?” She felt around on the pavement near her left hand for her smartphone. She could use the camera on her phone to survey the damage, but... it wasn’t there. She looked down and began searching more fervently.

It wasn’t long before she found it. A small black rectangle laying in the black tar of the road. With a horrified gasp, she checked both ways and clambered out after it, on hands and knees. Sharp rocks and other debris pricked her hands and pierced through her jeans, but she didn’t care. Her total focus was on the little rectangle.

When she retrieved it, there was huge exhale of relief. She quickly stood up and brushed the rocks off. Carefully holding the phone between her forefinger and thumb. A sharp and rude honk made her jump and scared her off the road, clumsily fumbling her way.

Standing on the pavement, she stared in horror down at the rectangle. Which now had a spiderweb of cracks in the glass. She tried her trick of holding down on the power button, but she was met with a black screen no matter how long or hard she held it down. She turned it over in her hand and was met with the damaged flower design phone cover on the back. She didn’t need too see any more. It was broken.

A feeling of deep despair and hopelessness washed over her as she examined the small rectangle that had become an important piece of life, now destroyed. What was she going to do? Then a thought struck her. The repair store. The repair store could fix it. First, she needed to make it to her car.

She stood up quickly and looked to her left and right. She had run into the transmission pole. So... she had to go right. She dropped her phone and earphones into her pockets and ran. Where did Dove say to go? Right? Then a left? And wait on a corner? Which corner?

At the first corner that she came to she took a step to the right, but paused. “Was it... right? Or... left?” She looked up and down the road. She decided on right. “Then what?” She said quietly under panting breaths. “Left?”

She took a left across the road. Almost getting hit by a hatchback and two electric scooters on the and stopped at a corner. But when she looked around the four-way intersection, she couldn’t see the deep blue of her sedan anywhere. Was she at the wrong corner? Or maybe... it hadn’t arrived yet?

She reached for her phone automatically and was met with a useless shape of glass. “Oh! That’s right!” She sighed, exasperated. “How am I supposed to find my car without my phone? Where even am I?” She looked around again.

There was nothing familiar about her surroundings. Maybe she could walk back to her grandma’s? But she found that she couldn’t even recall the way she walked to her grandma’s house. All she did was follow Dove’s instructions. How could she find her grandma’s again? Where could she go? Another feeling of helplessness washed over her. She collapsed onto the curb. Her bent knees reaching up to her chin.

She watched the cars drive by in front of her and pedestrians walking behind her. Everyone was distracted by a device, whether it was on the car screen or a phone screen. She thought of asking someone, but they all seemed to be on an urgent mission. Powering on their way like worker ants who live only to work for the colony collective. Not able to stray from the trail left by the workers before them. She didn’t feel brave enough to disrupt any of their plotted courses. Lest they turn around to scold her or lose their trail and disperse like confused, aimless ants.

She had to think! Logical! Not panic and freak out. How could she find her way to anywhere?

First! She needed a starting point. She’d heard from her grandma, an expert at finding her way without any digital assistance, that the information centre is a good place to start. She also said that every town centre has one. Aliyah looked up to the nearest signpost. It only had the names of two intersecting roads. She scanned all the corners in sight. One especially loaded signpost that pointed down a wider and more prominent road, had an eye catching blue sign that read: “Town Centre”

“Oh! That’s it!” She leapt up with a happy cry. “Town centre. Perfect!”

After looking both ways, she ran across the street straight for the signpost. She turned down the road and followed it into town. There wasn’t a long walk since her grandma always lived within walking distance of everything.

The scenery quickly changed from suburban houses, full gardens and trimmed lawns to revamped old buildings, large font signs and parallel parking crammed full of cars. It was an old-style town that had been forcibly dragged into the 2020’s. Unable to shed its 20^th century shell, it just kept being gutted and stuffed full of the modern elements of the decade.

At random, she chose to turn right. She couldn’t remember much from her time following her grandma around this town. Unfortunately, her devices had diverted most of her attention, but the one thing that she did remember was that it was a small town. From her memory, she could walk the whole circumference of the town in an hour. She could search this whole town before nightfall. When she finds an information centre, she could ask to borrow a phone. Then she could ring her mother. Once her mother hear's she won’t leave her out here alone. She would definitely send someone or something to pick her up.

So, Aliyah began her little search through the town. Now, if the city is a concrete jungle, then this town was a gravel windowsill herb garden. Its clean cut, safe, and... small. It wasn’t long before she noticed the small corner of an old red brick building with a prominent blue sign with a lowercase i. The symbol that signalled the location of the famous information centre that she’d heard of.

The centre was just a corner of the building decorated out the front with pretty flowering plants. The rest of the building was split up, one quarter being a set of public restroom and the other two-quarters were dedicated to the small town library. Both considerably drab compared to the flourishing garden in front of the information centre.

She walked through the raised garden beds and straight through the automatic doors. Inside was not as pretty as the outside. It had a drab brown-grey carpet and faded, uninspired blue and greys for the furniture. Even the two woman behind the counter were dressed in drab, jaded colours and had bored, but pleasant faces.

She approached the first woman, a lady with homemade bangs that were too short, who connected eyes with her.

“Hello, dear. How can I help you today?” She asked. Not the least bit worried about her appearance.

“Hello, um, I’m lost and my phone is broken.” Aliyah lifted up her shattered phone to prove her words. “Can you lend me a phone, please? I need to call my mum.”

“Sure, we have a public phone right over there!” She pointed to an old landline phone mounted to the wall. “Its free. Just dial your mums phone number in.”

An overwhelming sense of relief washed over Aliyah as she rushed towards the ancient form of communication, barely remembering to thank the woman. Never had she been so grateful to see a scuffed, ugly, cracked old phone from days long before her birth. She quickly snatched the phone from off its hook. Taken aback by the lack of keypad on the device in her hand, she looked for it. When she spotted it on the device mounted on the wall, she reached to type in her mum’s number in an instant.

She spoke as her pressed the buttons. “0 2 1 3 6... 3 6” She paused. Her forefinger hovering over the six. Suddenly she realised... she couldn’t remember her mothers number. It had always just been in her phone under the caller ID “Mum” She racked her brain to remember, but nothing came.

With a defeated sigh, she hung the handset back up. Turning slowly, she sheepishly walked back to the counter. “Hey again.” She greeted quietly.

“What’s the matter, dear?” The woman with homemade bangs asked.

“Um, heh, um, so... I can’t remember my mums name.” Aliyah admitted with a sheepish laugh. Her opened palm sliding back-and-forth across the counter coyly. “When my mum gave me my phone it already had hers and dads number in it. I don’t think I’ve actually read it before. Ha!” This confession was so embarrassing it was funny.

The woman didn’t laugh, but gave an awkward and understanding tip of the head. “Alright then, dear. How about I give you the time tables of the bus routes?”

“Yes, please.” Aliyah nodded enthusiastically, but paused when she realised something. “Oh, but... I don’t have any money. I only have a digital card on my phone.”

“Oh dear! You really are in hot water, aren’t you?” The woman, finally realising how stuck the young lady in front of her was. With a gentle look, she considered Aliyah. Then reaching into her purse sitting on the counter behind her, she pulled out a closed fist. Turning back, she offered her closed fist over the counter towards the young lady.

Opening her fist, she dropped some coins onto the vinyl lined wood. With a slight indication of her head, she nodded to the coins. “It’s just a few coins. Not much! But it will be enough to get a ride to wherever you need to go.”

“Really?” Aliyah asked with surprised, wide eyes. A look of bewilderment on her face at the kindness shown to a floundering person such as herself. Then the warmth of gratitude in her chest. Afterwards, there was a strong sense of shame in her stomach. With downcast eyes, she examined the few coins in front of her. “I’m so sorry. I feel so ashamed... I wish I could refuse, but... I really do need these. Sorry.”

“That’s alright, dear. I understand.” The kind woman said with a caring, motherly smile. She returned her attention to the monitor below the counter and typed something rapidly. Her fingers pounding rhythmically on the keys. There was the sound of a printer printing. Then she pulled a piece of paper out and laid it on the counter next to the coins. “Here is the bus schedule. The nearest bus stop is just outside of this building. Just go sit in the bus stop and take the next bus to where you need to go. Okay?”

Aliyah’s head had been bobbing as she intently listened. Then she thanked the woman again and scooped up the coins and paper, repeatedly expressing her gratitude as she backed out of the automatic doors. She really couldn’t express it enough. She had never had to be given money before. It felt pitiful... like begging. She didn’t know how to process this. However, her desperate need for it was undeniable. She decided that she would come back and pay back the nice woman. She knew where to find her now, so it would be easy to find her again.

With this thought comforting her ashamed heart, she turned left towards the faded, but sheltered bus stop she’d spotted just a little way down the road. Earnestly scanning the time table in her hands, she walked briskly down the side walk. Not realising the long legs ending in well-worn wing tip shoes sprawled out across the pavement directly in her path.

With no Dove in her ear to warn her, she went tumbling over the threadbare, patched-up pant legs. Again, she fell down. This time she fell face first, hands out to catch her fall still holding onto the bus timetable. She managed to catch herself at the last minute and avoid knocking herself out a second time.

“Hey! What gives?” She yelled out, fumbling back upright. “Why are you blocking the whole sidewalk-?” Whirling around to face the owner of the knobbly legs, she looked down on a sleeping man with a ratty, grey newsboy hat pulled down onto his face. The tripping had made him stir and mumble something. But his head just tipped to the side and he slumped back down against the low wall. Soft snores rising through the worn fabric of the hat.

“Ah, whatever.” She muttered under her breath. Brushing herself off, she returned to the timetables. “How do you read these?” She twisted and turned it in her hands as if it could be deciphered by any other angle.

Sitting on the bus stop bench, she set her mind to deciphering the piece of paper. It was just a sea of black ink. It was too overwhelming at first glance. Once more she missed her phone. This was just one more instance where it was easier to just type in a question and get a straight, AI-compiled answer. Now she had to not only search for the routes that were bound for her town, but also ones that included her stop. When she did find right route, her finger traced across the black cells to the time it was to arrive.

“What is the time?” She asked herself, looking around for a clock.

There were no clocks in or on the bus stop. Nor anywhere else along the street. “What a pain!” She sighed to herself. How she missed when she could just check her phone. It was so easy. How was she supposed to check the next arrival time?

Thoughts of walking home floated through her head. But then thoughts of the busy highway that separated her grandma’s town from her own followed. With a strong shake of the head, she rejected them. What if she got hit by one of the vehicles? Or there was a crash, and a vehicle flew off the highway and mowed her down? It was a likely and horrific scenario that played in her mind.

It seemed to her that the only way was to wait until the next bus arrived. How long would that be? She didn’t know. She folded forward, her facepushed into her knees. Slumped in complete deflation.

“Time?” A muffled voice said.

The voice was clear enough to make Aliyah sit up in surprise. “Who’s that?”

“Me.” The voice answered. At the same time, the sleeping man raised his hand up to yank his hat off his face. Revealing a handsome face framed by thick, brown, matted hair that hung past his shoulders. After his eyes flickered to her briefly, they turned to the scuffed watch on his wrist. “Time is... 5:47.”

“Really? Thank you.” She replied with a happy gasp. Her finger brushing across the cells of the timetable once more, she fell onto the next arrival time. “6:20?!” She yelped. With a soulful moan, she added. “I’m going to have to wait here for almost half-an-hour?”

She looked around for the sun’s location in the sky. Thankfully, it was summer so the sun wouldn’t go down until 8 o’clock or so. “That’s plenty of time to arrive in my town and walk back home.” She nodded to herself.

Suddenly becoming aware of a set of eyes on her, she looked back to the scraggly man. Now that she could see his face, she realised that he was quite young. Around her age, she guessed. Early to mid twenties. Though he had a handsome face, his worn, shabby clothes and oily hair certainly subtracted from it. His whole look screamed homeless in her mind.

Staring at the homeless stranger made her feel very awkward. Quickly, she looked away and tried to look very busy, staring at the cracked screen of her dead phone.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw him settle back against the wall and slap his hat back over his face. A relieved sigh escaped her lips subconsciously.

With no phone to alleviate her boredom, the minutes seemed to drag on for hours. Bored out of her mind, she stood up and began pacing back and forth. Her walking circuits began getting larger. First, they were contained inside the bus stop. Then they stretched through each end of the open bus stop ends. Growing until they reached up and down the sidewalk. Extending past the information centre and up to the sidewalk cornerwhere it took a sharp left, just past the bus stop.

As she completed one circuit outside the information and spun on her heel to retrace her steps, she saw two teenagers in school uniforms pass her. They stepped lazily and distractedly, each taking turns to show their phones to each other. Aliyah saw an earphone in one ear of each student as she passed them.

Her steps being more certain and confident than theirs, she pulled far ahead of them. She passed through the bus stop shelter that bent over the side-walk and reached the corner once again. On turning back, she watched one of the schoolboys stop suddenly with raised arms. If he had carried on he would’ve tripped over the homeless guys legs, just like she had. But from his reaction, she deduced that he’d had his AI warn him just in time.

His friend was at the right distance away to miss the tripping hazard, but he paused and turned to face the sleeping man. He seemed to be laughing and pointing at the sleeper. But the one who could’ve tripped looked very angry. In frustration, he kicked the sleepers gangly legs once.

Finally, roused rudely from his nap, the homeless guy retracted his legs and pulled them up against his chest. All the while, he didn’t remove the newsboy hat. Obviously thinking that would fix the problem, he let his head rest on the wall again.

However, it wasn’t enough for the angry schoolboy. With a curl of his lips, he began mercilessly kicking the homeless guy. His friend who thought it was hilarious, followed suit.

With a horrified gasp, Aliyah felt compelled to say something. There was a nagging feeling of fear, but she didn’t allow herself enough time to listen to it. She marched straight towards them. Going straight through the bus stop, ready to scold them harshly. Ready to scream and shout until they stopped.

“Hey! What are you do-?” Her words were cut off by the bullied homeless guy standing up.

He just shot up! His long legs, which had been on display planted firmly onto the pavement and pushed himself up. Now he looked down on the two startled teenagers. Their eye level suddenly being his shoulder height, they took a couple of steps back. In his fluid motion of standing up, he’d whipped off his newsboy hat to reveal two angry blue eyes that flashed in the sunlight.

“What’s wrong with you? Do you wanna fight? Come on!” He glowered down on them. His voice surprisingly deep for such a skinny build. When both the boys took an unnerved step backwards with hands waving in front of themselves. He took one intimidating step forward. “What? You were kicking me just now, but now you’re all out of fight? Come on then! I haven’t been in a fight in ages.”

“Come on, man! We’re just kids.” The formerly angry one, who was now attempting to hide behind his friend.

“Just kids? From the bruises left by your kicks, I’d say you’re a real expert at this. Right? You bully me. You must bully others kids, right? I think you two need to be taught a lesson!” He began unbuttoning and rolling up the sleeves of his old, thin trench coat.

The terrified schoolboys were saved by the arrival of a bus. On seeing the bus, they rushed into the bus stop. Impatiently banging on the bus door with their fists.

“Let us in! This guy is going to kill us. Let us in!” They shouted.

The doors mercifully opened, and the schoolboys pushed through the exiting crowd. Thrashing against the current to a seat in the back. All those leaving the bus looked out, slightly alarmed, before stepping out, returning to their placid obsession with their devices.

In their clamber to escape the towering homeless man, they had shoved Aliyah into the bus stop wall, shoulder-first.

“Ouch! Hey!” She called out. But they weren’t listening. Nobody was listening. They all just disembarked and went on their way. Their eyesight, distracted by a screen, and/or their ears, blocked by earphones. With a deep sigh, she stood up. Her hands sliding over her jean pockets. Checking that she had everything before she boarded the bus.

The wide strides of the homeless guy had made him reach the bus’s threshold first. She stood behind him, scooping out the coins in her pockets. Counting them out in her palm, she found that she had a total of $9.40.

“Is that enough?” She whispered to herself. She honestly couldn’t remember ever using such a low amount of money on any transportation before. Nor had she ever held so many coins in her palm at once either. It was a strange feeling as she jangled the keys in her hand.

The homeless guy in front of her had paused and began counting out coins into a small pocket of the sturdy plastic wall that cornered off bus drivers seat. Once he’d taken his time counting it out, the bus driver slid a cover over his pocket that also revealed an opening in her side. She reached through to grab the coins.

She counted them in a mere split-second and opened a coins drawer in the console in front of her. “Ha! Barely, Nelson.” She noted with a good-humoured laugh.

The homeless guy replied with a bright smile. “Oh, you know me, Zora... only the bare necessities.”

His fare paid, he turned out of Aliyah’s way. Now her time to pay, she stepped up to the scratched perspex that separated her from the driver, Zora. There was a piece of paper that displayed a table, taped onto the plastic, that dictated how much it was going to cost to get to her hometown. After some rapid maths, she found that it was going to cost $8.10. Her shoulders sagged with a sigh of relief.

“Um, hello. Um, here...” She dropped $8.20 into the pocket that had reopened after Zora, the bus driver, had slid the cover back over her opening. She slid the cover over again and counted the coins.

“Your change.” She said, sliding the cover back to reveal a dented and rusted 10c coin in the pocket.

Alliyah reached in to grab it with a nervous smile. Quickly, she moved out of the way for the next passenger. Sitting in the window seat closest to the front, she held the tiny, thin coin in her fingers. She was surprised to hold such a tiny thing. Of course, she had always known that they had ten-cent coins in her country, and she knew what they looked like. But holding it physically in her fingers felt so strange. She was used to breezing over the two digits after the decimal point in any purchase. In the case of the digital payments which she was used to, the second digit was hardly ever a zero. But with physical payments, the cost would be rounded to the nearest zero because there was no one cent coins in New Zealand.

She found it quite funny to consider as she turned the copper-coloured coin in her hand.

“Uh, excuse me! Bus driver?” A voice yelled out from the back of the bus. Making Aliyah turn towards the commotion. It was the rude schoolboys.

“That hobo!” The angry kid pointed towards the homeless guy, Nelson, who was sitting a few rows behind Aliyah. “He intimidated us!”

“And threatened to beat us up! We don’t feel safe with him on board!” His friend chimed in.

The passengers that entered after Aliyah, had all used their phones to tap onto the bus. So the line had cleared up quickly. This meant that Zora had been patiently waiting in her seat. But with the complaint from the very back of the bus, she leaned forward to see as far down the bus as she could.

“Really? Nelson? Is that true?” She asked.

Slumping in his seat, he scrunched up his nose. “Yes. But they were kicking me. I was defending myself.” He beat his chest with his hand as he claimed his self-defence.

“That’s not true-!” The angry kid yelled back.

“Quiet! Do you think I’m blind? I saw you as I pulled up.” She snapped back, making the two boys dissolve into their seats. After thinking for a moment, she pointed and indicated for Nelson to approach her perspex shield.

He stood up and walked over. Hands clasped behind his back as he leant forward to listen to what she had to say.

“Tell you what... I can’t just dismiss safety concerns for my passengers. Instead... how about you sit over there where I can see you?” She pointed to the seat beside the startled Aliyah.

“Aw, I don’t know, Zora...” He said with a mischievous smile. “The little lady might not want me to sit next to her.”

Zora looked past him to Aliyah. “Do you mind, miss? I swear he won’t bite. I’ve known him for five years and he’s always been a gentleman to the ladies.” The cheeky Nelson seemed to reinforce this with a blinding smile.

Feeling cornered by the unwanted attention, Aliyah’s head shook instinctively. “No, no, no, no... problem. I-I don’t mind.”

“There you go.” Zora stated. Leaning forward, attempting to project her voice up to the back, she yelled. “Alright? He’s gonna sit up front where I can keep my eye on him. That okay, boys?”

There were faint mumbles of begrudging approval from the schoolboys. Then they returned to their devices.

As the handsome Nelson approached her, an embarrassed Aliyah quickly looked out the window. She didn’t dare to look back until the red in her pale cheeks stopped burning.

“Alright then! Off we go!” Zora called out. “Just FYI, I’m navigating by memory because my navigation is on the fritz at the moment.”

The bus’s engine started, and it pulled out. Swinging wide to change lanes and then around a sharp corner. This wide swing sent an unprepared Nelson tipping into Aliyah.

“Oop! Apologies.” He said.

This brief brush of their shoulders made Aliyah’s cheeks burn harder, and the spot on her shoulder where they touched - tingled. She felt like she was floating for a second. Why was she like this? She scrunched up her eyes and clenched her fists on her lap as she tried to snap out of it. He wasn’t that good-looking. Average, at best. Besides! He was scruffy, and his clothes were ratty and dirty. When she opened her eyes, she found that her cheeks had stopped blushing and she was firmly sitting in her seat. Was it over?

The only real way to know was to look at him again.