Raining on the bus, and other koans

It's raining on the bus. Actually, in the bus, some of the time, as a matter of fact. Slav is carefully positioned between two persistent drips, Liang is dodging intermittent streams, and Ahmed has produced a trusty roll of tape from his bag to bandage a hole above his head. It is working at least as well as the duct tape that we now notice is covering other sections of the ceiling.  Aamir has been locked in a protracted game of mental chess with Coach Caveney. I heard that Aamir had a pawn on h3, but that yields precious little insight into the meditative exercise going on next to me. Mainly each of them looks straight ahead silently for a stretch of time, punctuated by the pithiest of exchanges.  Then, for a while, they break into discussion, analyzing the ethereal structure they have been building.