The Battle for an Inch

As I dozed to my music on the way to Cuzco, I noticed something. It was nothing new, but in my semi-bored state I thought to test it. I had observed during a previous long bus trip, Julie's tendency to occupy space. My space. Since she is oftentimes restless just prior to falling asleep on overnight buses, I try to allow some distance between us in order to prevent connecting with a stray elbow. As she tossed from one side to the other on that previous trip, I noted that the space I had consciously left became occupied by either a pair of knees, or feet, depending on which side she happened to favour at that point. Not that I minded; I had been reasonably comfortable and it only made sense that she should be too. I had assumed then that she took the space because it was available.

On the trip to Cuzco, however, she was not asleep. She was devouring a novel this time, so I thought it within my right to claim the airspace above my seat and sat in it square. But there was an elbow against my arm, and I started to wonder if she was one not to take what was free, but what she wanted to take. I retreated my elbow an inch, and there was the elbow again; every turn of her novel's page, pressing into my space harder. At the turn of the next page, I took the opportunity to advance my elbow to its original position, wondering if hers would accordingly retract, back over the small gap between our seats. It did not. Instead, it returned firmly as ever against my arm, with no indication of retreat.

So I pulled my arm back in that one inch, thinking to myself that Julie once again won, and she didn't even know it.

Author's Note: I wrote this as an exercise to alleviate my boredom. It is not to say that I don't invade Julie's space myself, whether it is with a foot, my backpack, a rendering of "Tie A Yellow Ribbon 'Round The Old Oak Tree", or even an elbow occasionally.