"-//W3C//DTD HTML 4.01 Transitional//EN"> Frigg | Spring/Summer 2025 | waiting on the citybus | daniel joseph
artwork for daniel joseph's short story waiting on the citybus

waiting on the citybus
daniel joseph

we were waiting on the citybus to come, wondering if we were waiting on the right line or at least had our noses pointed in a direction that made sense for the likes of us—strangers here as we were—when we saw the young woman with the mottled face & sunburnt jacket jump up from her duffle bag as if she had been kicked. she strode over our legs, climbed over the bus bench & hugged the guy limping back and forth, talking in flushed tones on his phone about pulling your shit together to someone who sounded far from here & far from there. we could even feel it wasn’t any old hug she gave him, but a real tender hug, like you’d give to some cold & shivering, too-big-broken thing chained out in an icy rain. we heard the young lady sough, right up in his ear, how sick she was of together being done like that; she kissed how mad of a hug this was into his cheek & how he was not, absolutely not, to take it kindly. we thought he must have looked rightly stricken after such a talking to, after such a coming together about together, but we didn’t know for sure being not from here & not knowing the customs & having bent ourselves instead to the sun, looking blindly for the citybus we hoped would come fast down the foiling street.



daniel joseph’s Comments

what if the rhetorical question were: “when are you going to stop trying to pull your shit together?”

Table of Contents


Frigg: A Magazine of Fiction and Poetry | Issue 64 | Spring/Summer 2025