No Current Departures

© Erin Wright 2013

I should have called a Taxi.

Something about the way the guy stood at the bus stop was unnerving. The electric screen declaring “No Current Departures” made it worse. I didn't know why he waited, I don't know why I stopped either.

The guy looked out of place at 3am, waiting for a bus. I guess I did too. He stood there barefoot but casually and neatly clothed. Still but not unmoving. Watching the empty road and waiting he seemed to pay me no attention as I drew close and sat on the bus stop 'bench'.  He was a curiosity. He was a part of the world that jarred with expectations and left you wondering what and why.

I waited about ten minutes, or an hour. I don't know specifically at all. I seemed to lose track as I too watched the open road. Watching the same space as he while completely ignoring everything else. Time seemed unimportant. Time was both still and flowing. Time was a part of waiting. The time spent here didn't matter, and because it didn't matter I didn't pay attention to it.

There were no buses at this time of night. There might have been other people passing by. I didn't see them if they did. I couldn't see anything other than the road and him. He saw nothing but the road. I almost wanted to reach out to him and touch him. To see if he would notice me then. To see if his dark hair was as smooth as it looked. To see if he cared about anything other than the never-arriving bus. To see if he was real.

I was never going to touch him. I was never going to say anything to him. I was just going to sit there and wait for a bus as eagerly as he. I didn't even know where the bus would be going even if it did arrive. Where would buses even run to at 3am? There isn't anywhere that I'd be trying to get to other than home at this point in the night. That is, if I wasn't waiting for a bus.

I waited.

What was I even doing there? It made no sense for him to be waiting for a bus and it made even less sense for me to be waiting with him. Maybe it was curiosity or just boredom, but I wanted to be there. I felt compelled to see this through to the end. To work him out. To see if he would notice me at all. In some ways I just had nowhere better to be, but that wasn't much of a reason at all. Most of all, I wanted a bus to come.

The road was long and dark. The lights were amber and did little to actually make details visible. The occasional passing vehicle was only distinguishable once it had passed by, by which time I didn't care to examine its detail. My focus was on the road and the bus that he and I were waiting for. I only tangentially thought of him at this point, wondering why he waited for a bus that wasn't coming. I was too consumed with waiting for a bus too to connect his wait to my own.

Time passed. He still stood watching the road. I still sat watching the road. The sign still declared “No Current Departures”.

Then the bus came.