Waiting for the Bus is the Same Everywhere

Meeting at a Bus Stop (Sandu Mendrea)

One afternoon, well after the bus had passed by on its way from the Kolinda forest to Sinistra, a man came ambling across those snow-patched, crocus-dotted mountain meadows.... On reaching the road he paused, hesitating: He just leaned out over the paved surface, as if worried that its current would sweep him in one direction or the other. For a while he stood about, looking puzzled until he turned his head toward the creaking bus-stop sign. He then crouched on the ground, planting himself at its foot: a wayfarer waiting for the bus.

From The Sinistra Zone by Ádám Bodor (tr. Paul Olchváry)

Finally, an English translation of Hungarian writer Ádám Bodor's beautiful and grotesque stories (or novel) set in the remote Sinistra Zone, with its the Mountain Infantrymen, bear keepers, "Gray Ganders" (official watchers), and roadworker and sometime "assistant corpse watcher" Andrei Bodor (or so he is called). (An earlier post featured a film based on Ádám Bodor' work.)