On Missing It by Four Minutes
There is a particular quiet that belongs to a bus stop after ten. The timetable is a promise made by people you will never meet, and standing there you are entirely dependent on strangers having done their jobs properly. Usually they have.
The schedule is a kind of trust
Nobody thinks about a network that works. It is only when the last service is cancelled that the whole invisible arrangement becomes visible at once.
Everyone waiting is on the same side
Strangers at a late stop talk more than strangers anywhere else. Shared uncertainty is levelling, and it ends the moment the headlights appear.
Walking is not a defeat
If it has gone, it has gone. An hour on foot through a town you normally cross at speed is a decent trade, and you see the shopfronts properly for once.
A timetable is a promise made by people you will never meet.
Written in one sitting.