Accessibility.

The afternoon is oddly warm. The sun peaks in and out of the shifting clouds, and even downtown warms in the rays. I'm on the bus going back to my apartment after making a generally brief trip downtown. The day is still early, but I'm tired. My eyes drift into a half-daze, staring into a dream.

I'm walking up to the van. I go around to the driver's side and open the door. I lift the key out of the cup-holder and start the ignition, adjust the radio. Putting up the armrest, I climb back, ducking to avoid the ceiling. I find the little, grey box and push the toggle down. The van starts buzzing as the side doors open and the lift flattens and lowers. Derek drives onto the platform. When he stops, I hear his chair beep as he switches modes to slightly recline.

"Okay." He says, but I've already switched the button up, and he is on his way. As the platform levels out with the floor of the van, I move to the back seat, still reaching the toggle to finish closing the doors. Derek pulls in and turns to face the front; he moves forward and back until he is parallel to the window and within good reach of the safety buckles.

His chair beeps again as he lifts his footrest. I go to the front of his chair and criss-cross the buckles. Left to right; right to left. He drives the chair backwards to secure them. I go to the back of his chair and criss-cross the buckles again. This time, I tighten each one until they are taut. I maneuver my way back to the driver's seat and put the armrest back down. I buckle my seat belt and put the van into gear.



The bus beeps in a steady rate as the lift lowers to let out the elderly gentleman with a walker who got on a few stops ago. The whirring echoes my flashback, and my head jerks up to look around: did I miss my stop? I didn't. I actually have a ways to go. I let out a big breath and blink too much as my mind wanders back to the scene in my head. It could've been last week. It could've been this summer. But it wasn't.

Sometimes I need a flip-book reminder to flash through my head to let me know how I got here and just where 'here' is: quick images of the major changes of the past year flirt with my sense of time and direction.

As the lift stows away and the beeping stops, all I can think is that he would love it here; he would be able to do whatever he wanted; we could be doing these things together.

We could ride the bus.