The Standard

I once sat at a bus stop.

Dark clouds loomed overhead.

It began to sprinkle.

The evening sun had just dipped below the clouds on the western horizon. Its rays transformed raindrops into colorful dancers. The asphalt beneath my feet still radiated intense heat from earlier in the day when the thermometer seemed determined to break all previous records. Florida summers are hot.

After a while, an elderly woman took a seat beside me on the bench.

At first, we sat in silence.

“Southbound?” I then asked.

She shook her head. Our paths would soon part ways.

We started chatting. She spoke of her dog and her late husband, her travel plans, and her newly found passion for knitting. I told her that I was headed to the beach to watch the sunset. I had heard that even the greatest artists could not replicate the painted Gulf Coast horizon on their canvases. I wanted to witness such beauty for myself.

Our respective buses proved to be delayed, so I decided to put small talk aside and inquire about her faith.

“Do you believe in a creator?” I heard myself ask. I felt a certain hesitancy in my voice, as if I wished to breathe the words back in before she had a chance to hear them.

To my surprise, she did not pause before responding.

“I’m no Christian, if that’s what you're askin’,” she began, “And I know what you’re thinkin’; lemme assure you: I’m a good person. I may not believe there is some god out there watchin’ over me, but I still do good; I still do what is right. You know what I mean?”

The westbound bus caught my eye as it pulled into view.

“I think I do, ma’am,” I replied. She nodded and smiled.

The bus screeched to a halt in front of us. The woman stood up, waved goodbye to me, and disappeared behind the hissing doors. The engine roared with the inefficiency of three oxen strapped to the front of a chariot. I watched it pull away until I lost it in the sun.

The seat beside me now stood vacant, but the woman’s words still occupied my mind.

She was a good person?

By what standard?

How did she know she was good?

I cast a glance at my wristwatch. My bus really was late.

Perhaps she is her own standard, looking to herself to decide what is good and then acting accordingly.

But would that not be like my watch examining its own hands to see what time it is? And if it was running slow by a few minutes, would I not tell it to adjust its hands from, say, 7:30 pm to the correct time of 7:45 pm?

My watch would then undoubtedly stare at me with a surprised expression on its face. “Certainly not,” it would protest, “Look at me! Look at the numbers to which I am pointing. It is precisely 7:30.”

“Do not forget your place,” I would then respond, “You are the keeper of time, not its master. The master of time is the sun alone. It is not your dainty hands which allow the sun to move across the sky. The sun does not wait for your command to rise in the morning, and it does not ask your permission before retiring at night. It does not look to you, but you look to it. You are merely given the choice of reflecting its position in the sky accurately or in a faulty manner.”

“Ah, but you, my little wristwatch,” I would continue, “You, in your foolishness, are perhaps one who would berate the sun … in a few days, when your hands grow weary and move ever slower, you would see the sun rise while you had not yet struck midnight. I assure you, if you, the keeper of time, believed yourself to be the standard, you would reprimand the sun furiously for waking at such an early hour. But the sun would not heed your scoldings. It would rise regardless of the time on your dial.”

Screeching brakes pulled me from my reverie.

The southbound bus rolled to a stop before me. Its doors swung open.

I entered, greeting the driver, and plopping down on an empty seat in the fourth row.

I doubt that the woman with whom I spoke thought she was the standard. Surely, she did not believe that she was the one who had been endowed with the power of determining good and evil.

Certainly, if I believed myself to be the standard of good, I would absolutely be a good person, for it would be impossible for me to fall short of myself.

My bus began rumbling down the road. I observed the timetable pasted on the window to my right.

My thoughts once again returned to the woman at the station.

Why did she believe she was a good person?

And if SHE is not the one to determine good and evil, who then is?

I read the screen mounted at the front of the bus. “50 Minutes Behind Schedule”, it stated in bold letters.

Perhaps the woman has decided that society is the standard … she does what society deems good and is therefore a good person.

But would that not be like this bus, on which I now sit, if it were to proudly proclaim to be on time? Would that not be akin to this bus deleting the message that reads “50 Minutes Behind Schedule”, and instead writing “Perfectly on time”?

If that were to happen, I would be puzzled, and I would double-check the timetable to my right and see that we should have reached our destination an hour ago.

“Excuse me?” I would say, trying to get the bus’ attention, “We do not seem to be on time according to this printed timetable on the window here. Why does your screen say otherwise?”

“Oh, haha, so sorry for the confusion, sir!” the bus would likely respond in its rusty voice. “You see, here is the deal: We actually measure our punctuality relative to the other buses. Now, you seem to be quite an observant young fellow, so you may have noticed that the westbound bus arrived at the station only minutes before I came rollin’ around the corner.”

“Would that not mean that you are both behind schedule?” I would likely inquire further in an attempt to understand the vehicle’s logic.

“Haha, alright, alright, so, NO. That is not what that would mean. I am pleased to report that not only the bus headed west, but also the east- and northbound transits align perfectly with our schedule. They have yet to reach their final destination. So, you can sit down and be assured that we will arrive on time! It would seem that the problem is with your window schedule. I’m sorry to say that it is evidently quite inaccurate.”

I believe I would then lean back in resignation.

I peeked past the timetable on the window and spotted the last rays of the setting sun dipping below the watery horizon. It was blood red.

My bus was late. It had not abided by the schedule. Thousands of buses could be late; that did not magically make all of them on time. Buses are not the makers of the timetable; they are merely the vehicles that must abide by it.

The evening sky was fading into night as my journey neared its end.

I disembarked.

I doubt that the woman with whom I spoke thought that society was the standard. Surely, she did not believe that society had been granted the power of determining good and evil.

I sat down on the beach.

The sand was still warm.

Once more, the woman's words echoed through my head.

“I’m a good person.”

Why does she think that?

And now here I sit, gazing into the night sky.

I feel small.

Then I whisper, “Rise in the east, sun. Rise now.”

Nothing happens. The sun does not obey my command.

I am a wristwatch.

I lay my head back in the sand.

A cold sensation suddenly washes over me. It feels as if the Gulf waters have been replaced by those of the Arctic.

But the chill racing up my spine did not come from the waves of any ocean; it flowed from three questions that now flood my mind:

Am I a good person?

Who determines whether I am a good person or not?

Who sets that standard?

Then one final question arises. My breath grows shallow. It feels as if the moon has doubled its size and now sends the freezing tide rushing inland. It feels as if the Arctic waves batter my chest. But again, it is not the rising of any icy current that grasps my heart. It is due to this one final question I ask myself:

What am I, if I am not good?

Still waitin'...