Both my feet are propped up on the empty seat next to me in the back of the bus. Outside the window, the alternating scene of trees, buildings and people is passing by. The thin aisle is lined along the middle with yellow poles running from the ground up to the ceiling, unneeded on the empty bus of twelve people. Seven are on the top deck of the bus, an eighth person the only one to accompany my family and me on the bottom deck. I’m leaning against the window, my skull pressed to the cool glass as I stare out into the aisle, bored. My dad gives me a disapproving stare before deciding to leave me be. He buries his head back into his newspaper while my mom’s head rests on his shoulder, asleep. My sister is on the verge of jumping out of her seat as she repeatedly whispers in an excited voice, “It’s today! It’s today!”
The bus lurches forward to a stop. My hands fly in front of me just in time to keep my head from hitting the seat in front of me, though it doesn’t save the back of my skull from painfully sliding against the glass. I mutter a curse word under my breath while rubbing the back of my hurting head. The person two rows in front of me turns to shoot me a glare from behind his green-rimmed glasses. I ignore him and settle back into my old position. Nobody gets on the bus and it continues along like nothing happened as my sister starts snickering at me.
I grumble something inaudible at her, but I don’t really mind. Her mocking laughter is the best thing that has happened to me today. Just before I got on this wretchedly humid bus, I’d gone to the grocery store to get some food, ice cream included. The store manager had yelled at me for absolutely no reason, causing me to hurry out of the store, my groceries in hand. She’d looked like such a nice person when I entered, wavy blonde hair to her shoulders matched with typical blue eyes and a small mouth. I hadn’t expected her to start shouting at the top of her lungs. Besides, it was her own fault for blaming me for messing up the labels and organization of her shelves when it was obvious that her husband’s pranks were to blame. Then again, I guess I can see why she’d been on edge.
Lazily, I fumble through the plastic bag on my lap, retrieving a puffed up plastic wrapper, icy to the touch. I pop the popsicle out of the wrapper and stick it into my mouth. A trickle of the chilling tangy juice dribbles down my chin, but I ignore it, focusing instead on the dessert. It’s nice to be able to have my five senses, but in some ways, it’s easily the worst curse.
The bus jolts to a stop again, but this time, I’m prepared. I swing my feet off the seat at the right moment, planting them right on the ground before I can topple off the seat again. A grin briefly flashes on my face, confidence overflowing from my feat.
“Is anyone sitting here?”
I look up to see a young woman in a plaid blouse of red, white and blue, the colors of freedom and justice. It seems to be a sign, but I don’t pay it any attention. Her green eyes are staring curiously down at me, pretty in the morning sunshine. I just lazily reply, “There’s plenty of other seats.”
“There are,” she replies, almost as if in a daze, “but the back seats have a better view.”
I study her for a while. Her hair is a balance between red and blonde colored hair that curls off at her shoulders. A dark blue sash is tied around her black pencil skirt, a slight bulge in the side. I can almost guess what it’s hiding, but that isn’t the point of what I have to do, so I play dumb. “Fine,” I finally shrug, wiping off the seat next to me. “Just don’t bother my family.”
Her eyes briefly glance back in surprise before she turns back and replies, “Of course.”
“Excuse me, miss,” the driver calls out. “Please be seated.”
Calling out an apology, she quickly slides into the seat next to me. We don’t talk to each for a few minutes. I stare out the window, my hand supporting my chin and my elbow on the tiny ridge of the framed glass. I’m looking outside, but my eyes are more focused on the reflection of the woman next to me. I feel like I’ve seen her somewhere before, somewhere I can’t quite remember. She has a rather sharp looking face that’s toned down by the mellow atmosphere around her.
“So what are you doing out at this hour?” the woman suddenly asks as the bus settles into its lane, waiting for a traffic light. “Don’t you have school?”
My elbow starts hurting from the pressure of the metal frame. Wincing, I slowly lift my arm out of its position and cradle it in my other arm before replying, “I don’t need to go. Mom and Dad said so.”
“Isn’t that bad?” she remarks. “It’s important to get a good education.”
I shrug and gingerly pick through the plastic bag in my lap. My wrapper from before is in there, sticky and yet still dripping, turning the bag into a giant mess. An unpleasant memory pops up in my head, and I grimace before thrusting my hand into the bag to grab a box of cookies.
After plopping a few crumbs into my mouth, I reply, “I’m a genius, that’s why, although that doesn’t matter, really. You’re still wrong.”
“About what?”
“Education. There’s no point in getting an education,” I tartly respond before throwing the box of cookies expertly over the woman’s head to my sister, who’s beckoning for them.
“What was that?” the woman asks, staring across the row, where my sister is now contently indulging in snacks bought from my own pocket money. Not that I mind.
“A box of cookies,” I state simply before digging around again to look for food.
“But where’d it go?” she asks in a confused tone, still staring past my parents, who are, as usual, perfectly fine with a stranger talking to their son.
“She’s eating it,” I explain just for the sake of explaining, letting out a giant yawn. My eyes stray out the window, catching a signpost labeling the name of the street we’re on.
My mind clicks. No wonder the woman looks familiar. My mouth slips as I remark, “So you’re the mother.”
“Excuse me?” she asks, eyebrows furrowing together.
“Nothing.”
The bus makes a left and this time eases into the bus stop. I frown. This calm, easing motion ruins my plans slightly. I’d been counting on that ferocious jolt forward whenever the bus stopped, no matter how annoying it could be.
“By the way, I was just wondering,” the woman speaks up as a man gets on the bus and sits down near the exit. “What did you mean by ‘there’s no point in getting an education?’”
“We’re all going to die anyways, aren’t we?” I reply back. My dad glances up at the woman once before shaking his head like he can’t believe she doesn’t get it. My mom stirs from her sleep, looking up to give me a weak yet faithful smile. My little sister continues to ignore everything.
“But we’re living right now,” she points out. “Don’t you want to live your life to the fullest? You said you’re a genius, right? Isn’t there anything you want to do?”
My shoulders sag a little at the thought, but I respond with only “No.”
“Really?”
I nod and explain, “After all, what will any of it mean once you’re dead? Most people in this society aim to be the greatest, to make a name for themselves. Only a few achieve that goal, the top elite of society. What happens to the rest?”
She doesn’t reply. I take that as a signal to continue, so I slump in my seat, shifting my weight around to get into a more comfortable position. In the middle of a yawn, I resume, “They get forgotten. They’ll die, and all they have left are a gravestone bound to fade away and people who once knew them when they were alive. Soon enough, even those people will have died, and who’s left to remember who they were? No one. When the world forgets your existence, it makes you realize that perhaps life wasn’t meant to be lived after all. Maybe it’s a lesson instead, so that when people die, they can learn what it means to be happy as they begin their new life in death.”
“You sound like you know a lot about the afterlife,” the woman jokes in a very serious tone. It isn’t a joke at all when the joke isn’t spoken in a tone to be taken lightly.
I don’t think much of it, turning back to stare at the reflection of her blouse. I wonder if those are the colors I’ll see at the end of this ride. I check my watch. I still have time, about fifteen minutes before I have to get off.
“Well, I can see ghosts,” I choose to explain. It’s pointless to have people see things the way I see them, but trying never hurts. People are too much of their own individuals to ever understand another person’s thoughts, even if many claim they can. Genius or not, even I couldn’t see the turmoil that must be going on in my fellow passenger’s head. “They have a funny trait about them, you see. When you die, you get stuck as a ghost, wandering the earth wherever you please. Normal people can’t see them or feel them, but ghosts have a material body that allows them to touch and hold onto whatever they like, though whatever they’re holding becomes invisible to people like you as well.”
“That’s one far-fetched idea,” she remarks, her tone still inquisitive yet unbelieving.
“I thought so,” I say with a sigh, the smile on my face more apparent. “I can’t ever convince you, of course, that what I see and hear is real. People rely too much on their five senses. It’s a blessing, really, to be able to experience the world as we do, but if we could go beyond that, deep into our imagination, maybe that’s where the real world lies, a world that nobody can normally see.”
She looks like she is musing over my words. The same person two rows ahead of me mutters under his breath, “What a wacko.”
He probably doesn’t realize I hear him, though he obviously can care less as he turns up the volume in his headphones. I catch a glimpse of the book he’s reading. It looks boring, but from the scribbles on the page, he obviously takes much of the text to heart. That, or the book is truly agitating, since it’s a language I can’t read.
“I think you should really try looking beyond what you usually see,” I suggest, dropping my bag onto the floor by my feet after a response from her was predictably unlikely. “If you let everything go and forgot everything you knew about this world, I’m sure you’ll find who you’re looking for in front of the nursery on Crescent Avenue.”
“How…” she stammers, looking up with a startled look in her wide eyes before regaining her composure. She immediately demands, “What do you mean by that?”
“Nothing,” I decide to reply in as vague a way as possible with a snicker. Surely it’d leave something for her to ponder about, to remember me by. My sister’s bouncing up and down in her seat, her voice containing so much excitement I’m almost afraid that it would burst as she chants almost mechanically, “It’s time! It’s time to go, brother!” Even my dad looks up from his paper at me, my mom choosing instead to stare down the aisle as if waiting for the moment when the almost torturous ride ends. The bus has a few ways to go before it reaches my street. It’s going to be an all or nothing gamble, I’m sure of it.
“You’re not being very helpful,” she eventually sighs as she rubs her temples like she’s under a lot of stress.
I raise my arms above my head and give them a good stretch. Less than ten minutes. A story always needs its climax, no matter how horrible a story it might be. Life is like a story, only worse because in life, no one knows if they’ll ever reach that climax of their lives. They never know when they’ll fall either. With that thought in mind, I make a decision to take a chance, to see how much fun could fit in these last minutes of my ride. I remark, “Oh right, before, you were wondering where that cookie box went, right?”
“You have an answer to that too?” she asks. I can still see the wariness in her eyes from my last remark.
“Actually, I already told you,” I admit. “I gave it to my sister, but since you obviously can’t see her or my parents, undercover lady, then isn’t it obvious the cookie box would vanish too?”
A dead silence seems to fall over us as she stares at me, eyes not filled with horror but just a dull, hardened glare from an exposed cop.
“So you knew,” she mutters, the mellow atmosphere dropping along with her act. Perhaps it hadn’t been an act. Maybe before she’d been that poor girl’s mother, whereas now there’s only the skin of that image and a cold, hollow core of a policewoman at work.
“Who doesn’t like red, white and blue?” I remark with a grin, taking note of the man near the exit. He’s on his feet now, conspicuously talking to something in the collar of his shirt. With the cat out of the bag, I guess playing spy is no longer worth their time.
“Then with that last statement, you admit to the murders of your parents,” she states coldly, hand straying to the lump in her sash, which, as expected, reveals a tiny handgun glittering under the afternoon sun.
“You still don’t get it, do you, even after I took all that time to explain it to you?” I ask with a smile, looking past her at my family who has escaped the curse of life and moved on into a world of no regret. “Death is the blessing in this world. Life is too full of anxiety and sorrows. Humans fight and fight for their dreams and everything they hope to be to improve their so-called ‘life,’ but it all amounts to nothing but death, a curse that proves that all you’ve done is nothing but a lie, and yet, it’s also a blessing. The real world is filled with an overabundance of people with dreams unfulfilled and desires not met, but in death, there’s only peace and happiness.”
“You’re crazy,” is the only reply I get from her accusing stare.
“Maybe,” I shrug. “I don’t understand you very well, and I don’t expect you to know the way I think either. Though here’s a question for you. Has anyone ever thought you were God?”
Her cold glare only reinstates the fact that no one had. I turn to stare out the window again, my finger tracing my own reflection as I continue, “That was what my family thought of me. I was too smart for my age, learning college courses before kids my age could even do basic algebra. I saw things that no other human apparently could. Others shunned me for it, but my family provided me with more support than I could ever ask for. I told them of my theories and they accepted them like Christians would the Bible. Even so, stress and complaints about work filled my home everyday. They were unhappy, just as every living person I met seemed to be. I wanted them to be happy, and life was only turning out to be a disappointment, so the choice was obvious.”
“That doesn’t justify the fact that you killed your own family, Alan Dumme,” the policewoman growls in a low voice.
“I wasn’t trying to,” I dully reply, getting up onto my two feet. I push my way into the center aisle before she can react.
I hear a click as she warns, “Don’t move anywhere.”
My face is turned towards my family, my back to the lady. I put on a smile that only my family can see, and I can tell that they know it too. The end is here.
Slowly, I put my hands up into the air. The speaker blares, “The next station is Mirror Lane. Passengers getting off at this station, please prepare to get off.”
“Looks like my ride’s ending here,” I absentmindedly murmur to myself.
“What?”
I twist my head slightly to look back at her. Red, white and blue. They really are the last colors I’ll see before I get off this bus ride to oblivion.
I grin and cheerfully say, “Thank you for making this ride interesting. Hopefully you’ll meet your daughter with my advice.”
The bus lurches forward at that very moment, screeching to a halt at the stop. The lady stumbles towards the row in front of her, almost toppling over the seats. Her look of horror is unmistakable as luck decides to take my side till the very end, sending me toppling into midair.
All it takes is a loud thump as bone and skin hits hard metal at a vicious speed, and I know that now, as temporary blackness blinds me, I can finally be free.
ns 15.158.61.5da2
