The Bus

A flash piece.

     Under a gloomy California sky, the convoy of buses flows up the hill, stretching out into the distance like a mechanical snake.  Each bus, I know, is packed with people, the same as the one I am riding. 

     People of all ages.  I count forty six of us.  No, there are forty seven, including me.  I see a young girl, maybe six years old.  An old man, perhaps in his eighties.  And everything in between.  They are all strangers to me, though we all have something in common.  Nobody is speaking to anyone else – they do not know each other.

     I feel very uncomfortable, like the temperature has suddenly risen a few degrees.  It’s stuffy, difficult to breathe.

     Everyone knows where we are going, and nobody has any complaints – no reservations or concerns.  They are resigned to their fate – to wind up where the policy rubber meets the heartless road of procedure.  It’s just the way it is.

     And thus, we ride the bus. 

     It suddenly occurs to me, however, that I am not content to simply go along with this.  There are still many things I want to do, and no reason why I shouldn’t do them.  There are books to be read, people to see and things to do.  I still have things to accomplish and good to experience. 

     I realize I want no part of this madness. 

     But, I mustn’t make a scene.  Everyone else takes it for granted that this situation is normal, and any objection on my part will raise an alarm.  But, how can they all be so calm?  How can they just accept this policy?  I am not going to fall prey to that way of thinking. 

     So, I take a slow, deep breath, rise from my seat, and calmly stroll to the front of the bus.  I keep my eyes on the road ahead, never making eye contact with any of the other passengers.  Just as I get to the front of the bus, we come to a stop at a traffic signal.

      “Okay, this is my stop,” I say casually to the driver.  He barely looks at me as he, out of habit, opens the door for me and I hop out of the bus and escape my doom.

     Suddenly I feel liberated.  Confident.  Bold.

     I stroll down the street with a sure stride, and then I realize where I am. 

     It is North Street, in Bristol, England.      

     How did I get here?  Who cares!  I am alive and I am going to stay that way – at least until the disorder takes me, though that concern already seems to be fading into the background like a bad dream.

     As I walk down the deserted street, I see a man coming toward me.  I recognize him as Jon Reid, a childhood friend.  I wave at him and call his name.  We speak, and I notice that I am very confident, speaking comfortably in my normal American-accented voice, rather than trying to fake an English accent as I did as a child.  That need to fit in is gone, and I can just be myself. 

     I am wearing my old white high-top sneakers – the Cons – and some sporty shorts. We go into a house, where we see a family sitting at dinner.  I recognize one of the people as another boy I knew many years ago.  Nathan was his first name, but Mark Webb, his next door neighbor and part of our group of friends, always referred to him as “Varrn,” because the buck-toothed Nathan sounded like he was saying “Varrn” when he said Mark’s name.  But Varrn is still young, the way he looked more than twenty five years ago. 

     I boldly shake hands with the father, an unfamiliar man sitting at the head of the table. 

     “Welcome,” the man says.  “Did you just arrive?”

     “Yes,” I say.  “This is Bristol, isn’t it?” I ask, starting to wonder about this odd reality.

     The man smiles knowingly.  “I can tell you haven’t been to orientation yet.”

     “Orientation?”

#

     The bus pulls up to the final destination and comes to a stop, its brakes moaning under the strain of another day’s deliveries.

     The driver pulls a lever, evacuating the bus of the poison gas, recycling it into the pump enclosure.  He pulls another lever, and the floor boards part, dumping forty seven bodies into a freshly dug pit.

 

END

Author's Note

Originally called "Transcript of a Dream" - this story is based on a creation of my unconscious mind.

Reviews

[Kimbro West]

Hey MB!

Love the story. In fact, I feel the same way about many things in life. I guess I am a "against the grain" kind of guy. Not that you and I are "different" than other people on the bus, like in a "special" sort of way. But the fact that we act on on our gut instinct does make us bold. Bravo, well done.

One thing I will ask. When you are doing dashes--are there supposed to be spaces there? I heard on a "Grammer Girl" pod cast that there are no spaces.

Later!

~KW

[Mel Stevens]

Very good. The ending, well, the ending is surprising, to say the least!