The Bus Ride

This is a short story inspired both by my long journeys home and Sartre's "No Exit".

The rain splashed on the side windows. As the Greyhound bus raced through wet, empty streets. I huddled deeper in my jacket looking at the smeared street lights. I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and tried to focus. The bus rattled to a stop and a cold gust of wind hit me in the face. All I saw was a t-shirt of "The Queens of Stoneage" underneath his black hoodie and a battered copy of a Terry Pratchett book. Two out of tree - I thought - if he has dark hair I'll say 'hi'. When he turned his head I clearly saw he was missing something essential, but by the time I could pinpoint what it was exactly, a familiar voice announced over the bus speakers 'It's such a bummer when they don't have faces, right?' The figure of the faceless boy stood there for a while as if waiting to see if I was terrified. I wasn't. 'You are no fun. ' the voice came shrill and clear from the speakers 'Ah, remember the good old days, when you were scared of everything I through your way?' I didn't answer, I was not in the mood for his games. I turned my gaze back to the empty streets and prepared to go back to sleep. The creature stood there, looking at the speakers and then back at me, unsure what to do next. His whole existence revolved around terrifying me, and I refused, stubbornly to be at least a bit scared. 'Come now Roger, don't be so disappointed, Jane doesn't want to play today.' - the familiar voice said over the speakers. The bus stopped again and Roger descended into the darkness outside and the doors shut tightly. We rolled onward.

I am not sure how long I've been here - days, months, years. Time passes differently on the bus. I haven't been the only passenger though when I came here the bus was full of people. Some of them didn't speak English,  so it was like one of those tour buses where you and 40 other people try to get a small glimpse at the sights that the young, inexperienced and slightly annoying tour guide is waving her hands at. But by the time you can actually squeeze your head, between the elderly woman with the wide brim sun hat and the dirty glass, the monument, church, interesting looking building, or whatever that seemed important to see, had already flown by. You are left with the satisfying ahhs and oohs of the others, lucky enough to be sitting next to the window. There were no ahhs and oohs on this bus. There were no clicks from the cameras. When people got into the bus, they usually had no previous recollection of how they got on the bus and why they were here. Eventually, they found out, and they didn't like it. Some tried to escape, again and, again and again, but they always came back. Some accepted the hard truth and found salvation, or in other words, they remembered on which stop they had to get off. In the end I was left alone, I was the last passenger. Around that time, my nameless, but very familiar tormentor came along. I guess, when there are no people to act as your torturers, you get someone from the staff to do it.

Now, the first time you come here, you expect to see everything your fourth grade teacher told you when she felt like preaching to a handful of ten-year-olds - the burning fires, the evil looking demons that will torment your soul forever, the screaming people. OK, maybe the last one was true. The thing is, Hell is simply an old, smelly bus that rattles into eternity.  But the people, they make up for the lack of demonic presence. Imagine having all kinds of people stuffed into a tiny place, waiting. Very soon the bus became a battle ground. Of course yours truly did not participate in the mutual torment. In time when all the disappointment, anger and fear of death was vented out and most of the people accepted their faith, the bus started to empty out. And all that was left was little ol' me.

The screen of the small television above the seats flashed blue. Nameless was sitting next to me. ‘Time to wake up girl; let’s see what’s on TV.’ Pictures of moving people filled the tiny monitor. There was no sound, only the racket from the bus filled the silence. ‘I think we are just in time for your funeral.’ Sometimes, my personal tormentor, Nameless as I called him, would show me glimpses of the Land of the Living. One thing that bothered me about death, when I was a kid, was that I would never know what happens to the people above. As bizarrely as it may seem I count myself lucky of having a silent, glimpse at my family. The Service seemed chaotic; mourners, dressed in all shades of black, were treading, to and fro. Even as they lifted the box and it started descending into the ground sense still hadn’t broken through. The television program was suddenly interrupted for a news bulletin. It wasn’t clear at first as to what the bulletin was about since the announcer had a serious speech impediment. For about half a minute, and in a state of high excitement, the announcer tried to say, ‘Ladies and gentlemen, ‘ ‘-can I have your attention please.’ Stammered the poor soul on the little screen " ‘Miss Jane Doe, please head towards one of the bus exists, your stop is coming up next.’ I sat up straight and turned to Nameless, who was sitting next to me through the whole ordeal.

‘Hey, why am I leaving the bus?’

‘You’ve been too long here kid. They are kicking you out’

‘But I haven’t accepted death yet, I am still angry and upset’ " this was a total lie, I accepted death long ago, but I felt good on the Bus and I did not feel like leaving just yet. ‘And besides, I thought we somehow knew when our stop was coming up.’

‘Jane', said Nameless, you are turning into quite the expense here. Rolling this big bus just for you; the boss won’t have it. They are kicking you out sweetie, sorry.’ The bus stopped abruptly and the doors swung open. I couldn’t see anything except darkness. Standing next to the door, Nameless stretched out his hand and said  ‘Take my hand, Jane I know the way. It’s the second hall to the right, and straight on till Midnight.’ I took one step, then another, squeezing his hand. I drowned in darkness.

                            *   *   *

‘Hello? Nameless? Anyone?’ The darkness started to lift up and I could see that I was in a hallway. There were no numbers, no names, nothing to indicate where I have to go. ‘Nameless, I’ve a feeling we’re not on the Bus anymore.’- no reply. Every footstep I took echoed and crashed against the tall ceilings. It sounded as if a whole army of me was walking down the dimly lit hall. Door, after door, after door I walked on. I could hear laughter, screams or whole conversations coming all muffled and unclear, obscured by the tightly shut doors. After what seemed years of walking I came up to a green, flashing sign, pointing to the right. The only door in this hall had a tag, which read ‘Midnight’. ‘This has to be it.’ " I said to myself and turned the door knob.

The room was simple; it consisted of an old armchair, the kind that every person above sixty-five owns, a TV and the head of a huge stuffed wild boar. ‘Welcome, welcome, welcome!’ " said the wild boar" ‘Ah, Jane, you don’t remember me. And how could you - look at me, I am a wild boar, the head of a wild boar.’ I stared at the mounted head for some time, trying to puzzle out who he was.‘Mr. Jefferson….is that you? " I said squinting at the severed head trying to find some resemblance between the pig and my elementary teacher. ‘Yes! Yes, it’s me, Jane. Good girl! You were always the brightest, although if you don’t mind me saying the weirdest one as well. Do you remember that time…’ " I left him to chatter on, contributing as little as possible to the conversation. I turned to the TV and realized it was turned on, the volume set to low. The camera showed a woman, standing in a gas station smoking a cigarette, looking around the parking lot. Suddenly, she dropped the bud of her cigarette and started towards a green SUV.

Mr. Jefferson’s monologue reached a point where I could not ignore him anymore. ‘Well, we had all these children out planting trees, see, because we figured that ... that was part of their education, to see how, you know, the root systems ... and also the sense of responsibility, taking care of things, being individually responsible. You know what I mean. And the trees all died. They were orange trees. I don’t know why they died, they just died. Do you remember the poor trees, Jane?’ I didn’t answer.

‘Do you think they will turn me into a boar too?’

‘I don’t know.’

‘Were you on the Bus before you came here?’

‘What bus? I woke up a head with tusks, attached to a wall.’

A scream came from the TV. The man from the green SUV was holding a bloody wrench. Next to him was a bloody heap, which looked like the woman with the cigarette. Now the man was fumbling around his pockets, looking for something.

            ‘Jane…’ Mr. Jefferson distracted me again. ‘do you remember Lucinda Black?’

            ‘How can I forget Lucinda Black " the blond, blue-eyed demon from third grade? Everyone knew her. Whenever I saw her perfect heart shaped face I face I felt the urge to hide. She wore bows in her hair and shiny black shoes. When she smiled, the gap in her front teeth made her look cute, but at the same time nasty; she could get away with everything. She would skip around the playground looking for her next victim. I wasn’t scared of her, although she looked like a child-sized doll. I was never one of the cool kids. With my glasses, too big for my face and ugly, neon-pink braces I was her favorite target for daily torment. She even coined me that nickname ‘Stapler’. She said that my braces made my mouth look like a huge stapler. Whenever she ran out of ideas on how to make my life a living hell, she would simply jump around singing her annoying song. It wasn’t even a real song, she just repeated ‘stapler’ over and over again in different voices and tones. Yes, I remember Lucinda Black.’

            ‘I think she is dead.’ said the boar ‘And I think they just killed her.’ his tiny pig eyes were fixed on the TV screen. I swirled around and saw the man on the screen screaming something on the phone. The camera zoomed in on the body and saw it was Lucinda, Lucinda Black from third grade. ‘It’s just like on the Bus, they are showing us glimpses from the Land of the Living. I couldn’t resist, so I sat down and watched as another man came into focus and both put Lucinda’s body in the car’s trunk.

            It was strange watching the lives of the living on TV. I already know what happens when you die, and how we are brought into this world, I need to fill in this gap in between with life, someone else’s life. Mine simply ended too abruptly. 

Author's Note

Since English is not my native language, I am bound to have mistakes in both my grammar and word order.

Reviews

[barleygirl]

This is pretty well written, for a person that doesn't speak English as your first language. It's easy to follow & the mistakes are not glaring or distracting. I won't get into that now, unless you want help with cleaning up mistakes. Let me tell you, I don't read much fantasy writing, becuz most of the time, I am paying attention to all the ways I don't believe it. But the way you've written this, it was easy to suspend disbelief & just jump into the story with both feet. I like the way one things leads into the next, like an illogical progression of weirdness, but all making some kind of sense & having related aspects that tie it all together as a cohesive story. Most of all, your imagination is top notch. You've really come up with some amazing strange ways to tell this story. Now I want to try writing a fantasy story!