“Next stop…”
A crescendo of electric guitars and the lead vocalist breaking into passionate singing rumbled through my headphones and drowned the prerecorded voice announcing the name of the stop, but I knew just by the view zooming past the window of the bus that my destination is still far. Even though I’ve only got on three stops ago and traffic was flowing smoothly, it still felt like this ride has been taking forever.
The weather outside was so gloomy that the sky went dark despite the morning sun has already fully risen, and rain was pattering against the windows of the bus. It sure was lucky that the bus was heated, even if it served to fog up the inside of the window, at least it wasn’t miserably cold. The steam blurred the outside view, along with the raindrops already accumulating on the outer side.
I tried to wipe the fogged-up glass with my jacket’s sleeve, but the ebbs of water on the other side created a distorted view of the street anyway, which I recognized only by the graces of the fact that this was my usual morning route heading to work.
This was such a repetitive and unchanged route, in fact, that I’ve been seeing most of the same people every day, like the older man sitting across from me that was always reading whichever newspaper that was abandoned on the seat by other passengers. Somehow there always was one within reach of his seat. Looks like he was just as tired as I was because he was reading the paper upside-down and…was it Russian? I couldn’t remember whether these newspapers were always in Russian or if I’ve ever heard the man speak it. Or maybe it was just my own tired mind betraying me.
Not that it mattered, it’s not like there was ever anything interesting in the newspaper, regardless of what language it’s printed in.
I could feel my eyelids flickering in a desperate struggle against gravity – which felt unusually strong this morning – moving in sync with the song’s drumbeat as it melted and melded into the next track to a point that you could think it was my hopping eyelids that dictated the beat, like a couple of tap dancers after a few cups of strong coffee. The type of coffee I could really go for right now.
Once the drum solo was over and I felt like I’ve triumphed the sandman this round, I noticed that the man with the upside-down newspaper was gone. That was…odd, he’d usually take the stop right before mine, and another glance at the rain-distorted view outside suggested we weren’t even close to these stops. Maybe he had some errands at an earlier stop, I thought and leaned into the nook between the chair and the window as I mused at this crazy notion that other people have their own private lives that we aren’t aware of and never will be.
There’s a word for that, but…it’s on the tip of my tongue, but I can’t remember it.
My eyes stung and I blinked hard as I tried to find any other point of interest, because trying to read Russian won’t do my tired mind any good and staring too much would be rude.
Actually, it wouldn’t matter anyway because the man with the newspaper was no longer there.
But when did the driver even pull up at a stop?
I couldn’t bring myself to think about it too much, so I just assumed he got off while I was spacing out and looking away. The lack of angry passengers meant that the driver didn’t skip any stop, so that was something.
No one even seemed…present. Everyone’s heads were craned down at their phones, a book or a different kind of newspaper that I couldn’t hope to be able to read, but even their face…maybe I was so tired that my eyesight deteriorated, but it was almost as though their faces was just a featureless silhouette, just a nose jutting out of seemingly random shapes.
And yet, somehow, it didn’t bother me at all. Why did it feel so…normal?
I leaned back again and looked to the ceiling to not get caught staring at anyone else.
The top of the bus was…more colorful than I remembered. And full of butterflies. Maybe it was some decorative kindergarten project that the city enacted, to improve the looks of public transport? These kids must be incredible with their arts and crafts, because the butterflies looked like they were practically flying off the ceiling.
And they did, paper wings fluttering ever so gently across the hull of the bus, that looked emptier than it was right before I looked up from the faceless passengers.
Suddenly there were so much of them crowding the insides of the bus that I was afraid they might choke it out or leave the passengers with some nasty paper cuts. The music changed to an ambient, natural sound accompanies by some instrument – kalimba, or marimba…or some other sort of ‘-imba’ – merging into a sound of raindrops as the butterflies began dropping from thin air one after the other when water started slowly drip from every possible opening at the ceiling, as if straining through a cheese cloth.
As water dripped all over and my clothes became fully drenched in water that seeped through to my very bones, I realized that despite the weather outside, they weren’t cold. In fact, it didn’t even really feel like water, despite how everything was floating.
The window was still steamed and fogged up, so I wiped it again to see where all the water was coming from, wondering if the weather has deteriorated into an apocalyptic storm, and finding myself facing a purple submarine floating next to the bus on a lane marked with “subs only”. Inside there were two astronauts clad in full space suits that hovered close to the window and waved at me. I waved back because that was the polite thing to do.
When I looked back inside there were no other passengers at all. There was no water, either, but I was still floating, somehow.
There was another creature there. Its upper part looked humanoid with the face covered in feathers that drew back to form a grey mane, and the lower part looked like the body of a black horse, crossed with something that resembled a slick, reptilian body, trotting on four clawed feet.
“La…st…” a guttural whisper came from the creature’s vicinity, although similar to the passengers that were no longer there, its face appeared to be featureless beneath the feathers. “…ast…op…” it kept going, voice sounding like it’s speaking behind a thick pane of glass. It walked closer, as tall as the ceiling of the bus – that no longer looked like a bus – looking down at me. Was it curious? Judgmental?
Percussion and bass hammered at my ears like drums of war, providing ample soundtrack to the surreal situation, as the thin, bony black hand reached towards me, claws glimmering in my face as the music grew louder and louder.
“Hey…”
“HEY!”
The headphones were ripped off my head in a swift, sudden motion. I woke with a start, gasping sharply with my heart beating fiercely in my chest and the sound of blood pulsing around sounded like a raging river in my ears.
It took me about an eternity to realize the driver was standing there in front of me – rotund, mustached, and supported only by two legs – wearing the bus operators’ signature blue uniform. He was waving his hand at my face to get my extremely divided attention.
“Finally!” he grumbled and pointed out the closest door. “C’mon, get! It’s last stop.”
Last? Oh man…
I was quick to jump to my feet and out the bus, and the driver yelled again that I forgot my bag as I did, so I snatched it with one fell swoop before jumping out and under the roof of the stop in the terminal, watching the long vehicle turning to park in its designated spot.
Better alert work that I’ll be late.
I yawned and took the phone out of my pocket, checking the time and missed calls and messages.
I think they already know.
