END OF THE WORKDAY
**First of all, I would like to point out that I am not a native speaker, and my text may contain spelling errors. I'm also a beginner, so feedback is always welcome. Keeping all that in mind, enjoy!**
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Another monotonous workday completed.
I staggered through the company’s exit door, the hum of the office’s fluorescent lights still lingering in my head, causing a nauseating sensation that made me realize how the comfort of mediocrity had punished my existence, but now I no longer cared. It was Saturday evening, tomorrow would be Sunday, the long-awaited day I was allowed to truly live, and I wouldn’t allow myself to waste that rest on existential worries. A good cold beer was waiting for me in my apartment, and I needed to kiss it.
I went to the bus stop, sat down, lit a cigarette, and waited. At first, I thought the bus was late, but as time passed, I began to consider the possibility that it had, in fact, come early and I had missed it.
My daydream, however, was interrupted when, without warning, it arrived.
No sound, no usual screech of brakes, not even that tired sigh of the engine. It was simply there, as if it had always been, doors open, waiting.
I got on. I don’t remember if there was any hesitation, I just stepped in. The interior of the bus was simple; the familiar worn seats already knew the contours of my back better than my own bed.
I sat by the window, as usual.
No other passengers.
The driver, visible only by his silhouette, did not move when I sat down. He didn’t look at me or say anything. I assumed that, like me, he was too tired to even think.
The doors closed without a sound, and then the bus started moving.
At first, nothing seemed wrong. The dark street, the spaced-out lampposts, the dull reflection of my face in the glass. But after a while, I’m not sure how long, something began to unsettle me.
I had already seen that lamppost.
I leaned forward, trying to get a better look.
The same lamppost.
The same crooked tree beside it, the same broken section of a wall, even a shattered glass bottle at its base. We passed them again. And again. And again. There was no turn or detour, only a haunting repetition.
I stood up. The movement sounded far too loud in that hostile silence.
“Are you going to stop?” I asked.
My voice sounded muffled, as if spoken underwater. And there was no response.
I walked to the front. The driver remained motionless. His head, however, was now slightly tilted, like someone paying attention, listening to something too distant for me.
“Did you hear me?”
I touched his shoulder. It was cold. Not like cold flesh, but like absence, as if I had touched something that had never possessed warmth. I recoiled and went back to my seat, or at least I tried to. It was no longer my seat. Or rather, it was, but somehow it wasn’t where it should have been.
I sat down, confused, trying to organize my thoughts, and looked out the window again.
The lamppost. The tree. The wall. The bottle.
I started counting.
One. Two. Three. Four…
I lost count around the seventieth loop.
The lamppost flickered, and when it steadied, there was someone sitting at the back of the bus.
I hadn’t seen him get on. I hadn’t heard any footsteps. He was just there. I tried to ignore him, turned my eyes forward, my hands trembling without my permission.
I went back to counting the lampposts, but they were no longer the same. And for a brief moment, I believed this paradoxical journey had finally progressed, but my relief was abruptly cut short when I realized the new lampposts were copies of the first, perfectly lined up, with the distance between them seeming to shrink as we moved forward.
They closed in so much that after a few minutes my vision was overwhelmed by the intensity of the light. I was practically blind for a long stretch, until the lights flickered again.
I looked back. The man was still there. But his posture had changed.
He seemed to have come closer without crossing the space, as if his figure occupied the foreground of my vision, though it also filled the midground and background, a nightmare of perspective that made me jump to my feet.
“How long have you been here?” I asked as soon as I found the courage. He tilted his face in a motion too slow for my comfort, and his face, to my astonishment, reminded me of someone, a distant memory that, at this point, no longer mattered.
“Time?” he said, as if his mouth were tasting the word for the first time. “You still use that?”
His voice seemed to come from both his mouth and mine at the same time.
I backed away until I hit another seat. It hadn’t been there before, or had it always been? I can’t say for sure.
I ran to the door and pulled the cord. Nothing. I pulled again. Nothing. The lampposts flickered once more, and when they returned, there were more passengers.
All seated, silent, occupying every seat.
They turned toward me, and their faces didn’t seem wrong at first, just delayed, as if their expressions took too long to catch up with what was happening. One of them smiled, and the smile came too late.
“You get used to it,” one of them said.
Or maybe they all said it. Maybe I said it. Maybe no one said anything.
I looked at the window, and there was only repetition.
Lamppost. Tree. Wall. Bottle.
Lamppost. Tree. Wall. Bottle.
Lamppost. Tree. Wall. Bottle.
Each time more compressed and distorted, as if the world was forgetting.
I turned to the front the driver wasn’t there. Maybe he never had been. The steering wheel turned smoothly, on its own.
The light flickered one last time, and when it came back on, I was at the back of the bus, tired and watching.
And up front, someone had just gotten on. The doors closed without a sound, and then the bus started moving again.