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Based on a Reddit Writing Prompt titled, "You end up in a Concentration Camp for the Incurably Single. How does your day go?"

The bus jerked around as it rode the rocky road to Rodwell, a trek it has taken before but not had grown accustomed to. So the Campers all slid around in their seats as they felt their last moments of requited love slip away from their sweaty palms. Richie regretted how young he felt as he and Katie both stared at the passing campground. Katie thought about losing her last game of Poker and Lester was planning his escape.

"Hey miss." Lester peered over the aisle to a small innocent looking girl sobbing quietly to herself. "You wanna get out of here?"

She looked at him with a small sniffle. Thought about how awkward his nose looked on his face and then nodded quickly.

"Good, what's your name?"

"Sam"

"That's a pretty sounding name. Now, forgive me if I'm a little direct but we should be holding hands."

Sam looked a little taken aback. She appreciated the complement as much as the next girl, she thought, but she did not look forward to taking a grip of his damp hands.

Sam watched as Lester took his hands from his lap and lain them out palm up to her. Mrs. Mayfire, their bus driver, glanced at the scene from her rear-view mirror. She chuckled as she had been surprised someone hadn't attempted this yet today. Someone always does.

"Your name?" She asked.

"What?"

"You haven't told me your name."

"Lester."

"I see" Sam stared down to the floor of the bus and contemplated how her life has led up to now. She had a couple boyfriends in college, one whom she had fallen deeply in love with. They broke off her Senior year, and she never finished college. She had taken two years off to "search for herself" and then wound up on the bus for the Incurably Single when she couldn't find her. So she decided to take his hands, but from the bottom up.

"Okay, listen closely. We are going to announce our profound love to the whole bus. We'll make a scene. I'm going to recite a poem"

"A poem? I don't think people are going to believe that."

"A poem is the epitome of putting strong feelings into words. A planned verse of love and affair, like Shakespeare. Who wouldn't buy that?"

There was a cold silence.

"Have... you ever had a girlfriend Lester?"

A young man, sitting in the window seat next to Lester, chuckled at this.

"Is there something wrong?"

"No, no, no." He pleaded, "Go hence, to have more talk of these sad things"

Lester sneered at him. Sam didn't really get it and stared blankly with tears still in her eyes. Lester turned back to her.

"Just make sure to grab the attention, and the heartstrings, of the bus driver. She's the one driving so she has to hear us and feel us. So shout loudly."

"It's not going to work." The young man sang.

"And what makes you so sure, William?"

"Sid," he responded with a glint in his eye, "And it doesn't matter how much you kick and scream, 'this isn't fair! Just give me one more year!', She isn't going to stop the bus. She isn't going to sympathize. She isn't going to even listen to you cuz' she's heard this a thousand times. She made you out the minute she saw the tragic tale of two lovers from the rear-view mirror.

Lester took a glance at the mirror and Mrs. Mayfire shifted her eyes quickly back to the road.

"Truth of the matter is, no one here cares if you fall in love. No one here actually thinks you can fall in love."

Katie shifted in her seat.

"That's the point." Sid diverted his attention back to a book he was reading in his hands. The title of the book, although, shares no pertinence to the story whatsoever. Katie turned around from her seat and confronted Sid from above curiously.

"Can I ask you a question?" Sid heard her and glanced up from his book.

"I suppose every prisoner eventually gets asked what he's in for."

She smiled. "Well?"

"I'd rather keep to reading someone else's story, thank you."

Sid tried reading his book again but just found himself on the same page as before, thinking about Elizabeth.

"Well, that's fine because that wasn't my question," She now had the attention of Lester and Sam and could feel a rush in her blood, "what makes you think love is unreachable now for us."

"We're in a concentration camp specifically for people who can't love or be loved."

"Sit down in the back over there!" Mrs. Mayfire screamed from the driver's seat and Katie sat in response. She did however peer her head over Sid and Lester's side of the seat.

"Do you believe that love cannot be attainable through other sources. Such as self accomplishment.

Sid groaned and Katie pointed to Richie, whom the group couldn't see past the bus's thick leather seats.

"Do you think that this kid next to me has no chance of feeling an emotion as strong and diverse as love for the rest of his life? Can he not love life itself?"

Richie wished nothing more but to be invisible during this moment.

"Listen, sweetheart." Sid taunted. "The whole country is soiled by the idea of true love. The prince and the princess, Romeo and Juliet. People can no longer 'love thyself' until they are shown love first. Maybe, people aught to search for something else other than something so hopelessly fragile and broken."

"Like arrogance."

Tis' was only a whisper but the rest of the group heard and turned towards Richie who sat arms crossed and blushed in the seat, making a deeper mold the more they stared.

"Oh what's your story then, Eeyore? If mine is full of yummy egotistical sustenance." Sid, now leaning over the seat to get a good look at him flashed his book in his right hand. "What makes yours a book with a happier ending?"

"Sit. Down!" The group all sat quickly back down in their seats. They sat in silence for a while as the main office came in sight of the right side window. Sam glanced over to Sid.

"I think I may have large expectations." The two boys turned. "I was just thinking about Katie's question. That might be the reason I'm here."

Katie peered over the seat a final time and Richie continued talking in silence. "I never really was that good at sharing my experiences with others."

Sid and Lester took a look at each other. There was a brief moment of competition in their eyes before Lester gave in.

"If there was a title it'd probably be called, 'How to be an insensitive prick and push everyone I love away from me.'"

The bus came to a stop and the passengers all stood up and slowly started to exit the bus. The group, now out of Mrs. Mayfire's sight, continued sitting and waiting for Sid's response, who remained un-phased by the group's moment of honesty. Sid marked the page he had been staring at for the whole trip, closed his book, and looked back at them.

"I've only been single for two months." He stood up and hopped over Lester's legs. "I volunteered to be here."