Or Regimented Oddly?

Always, hoping to find two empty adjoining seats to avoid sitting next to another passenger, he swept the seating in a bus in a glance.  That day as he turned from the fare-box he saw two empties and rushed to them.  Feeling comfortable in his good fortune he had looked across the aisle at the woman sitting alone.  Something indefinable about her.  She seemed fixed in a stillness that gave her the semblance of a coal-black mannequin that could not move unless propelled by another.  Her narrow black face showed no sign of life, as if slapped no sound would come from it; its stern expression would not change. 

The black satin blouse and black trousers held her slim, tight body as if she had not seen him look at her or didn't know what went on around her.  She had to know that her face reflected that hard look, he had thought.  Her people being without a legitimate culture her face probably didn't smile as easily as the face of women in that powerful reigning culture . . . her voice, because of something about  women like her having no protection down through history, could not sound as cheerful as theirs.  But she could have their hair.  She could go down to any drugstore and get it, like medicine.  Was that why her short black hair was decorated with four or five long blonde plaits?  They, against all that blackness, made her look odd.  Did she personify that "total" integration crowd?

The bus had pulled up to a bus stop and passengers were getting off.  There would be empty seats available.  He looked about for two empty seats farther away from her, saw two and went back and sat in one.  Still he thought of her.  Maybe she found living her entire life regimented into a single color too shallow and disgusting . . . with moderation as you go, son . . . .