A bus, clothed iris-blue and double-deckered, carries two. Travelling two-laned countryside roads, it weaves about snail-paced tractors and tottering makeshift mobiles like a convict running from the law. And if you were to ask, "does the driver know their route blind?" Not a soul would dare laugh. But, splayed across three seats on its second storey, resides an individual who prioritises the safest journey over proving such hypothesis'. And to dare defy her, even as her nasals mimic volcanic eruptions, is to invite an encounter to a banshee's ballad.

She navigates her dreams like divers do the reef; wanting never to leave, and coursing with curiosity from nerve-ending to nerve-ending. Although, instead of exploring coral caves, she pieces together the remains of shattered stars. A more-responsible counterpart to Le Petit Prince. And rather than evading deep-dwelling chompers and stingers, she veers clear of asteroid belts.

In four evenings, such dreams escape mere fantasy. The HERMES, humankind's most technologically-advanced star-settler vessel, awaits her and a hundred other astro-cadets for a one-way odyssey to Alpha Centauri Cb. After an adieu and hurriedly put-together speech more, everything required of her on Earth's dull and brown surface will be fulfilled.

"Eeeee. Brrr-clunk-rrrr-clunk-clunk-rrrr"

Gears crunch, wheels churn and all she touches shudders; the cacophony of an engine braking interrupts her rest. The driver, no longer about to resist doing something daring, steers the vehicle to a skid. A ballad of grim grumbles and yawns escape the lady as she realises this. But she's too exhausted to care. Still though, she laments science's lack of progress towards the creation of self-snooze mechanisms for the human body. What's even the point in having flying footwear if we don't even ha—

Bus doors whooshing wide katana-slice through her thoughts.

Soft-soled, heeled, metal-bottomed footwear and others not-so-covered at foot stampede the lower deck. "Click, clack, click, click," parade the feet as they scale the stairs. Then speeches, cheers and out-of-tune chants flood her previously silent storey. And arms, soothing as the melodies waltzing the room, carry her out.