A shrill voice cried out in hunger. My eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror. The mother of the infant was cradling him, telling him that if he'd just be a good boy, he'd get food when they got home. The little boy sniffled and ran a pudgy hand over his nose, settling down close to his mother. A young man grunted and shifted position at the back of the bus, relaying his annoyed feelings. The mother shot him a withering glance which he failed to note, having closed his eyes. A dark-skinned man up front ignored both of them, stoically staring out of a smeared window.
My gaze returned to the street. It was a darkness darker than the shadows the bus' headlights cast on either side, the strong yellow bulbs failing to illuminate more than a meter of paved road ahead. Dawn had yet to settle in, the sun having seemingly frozen in the act of rising; the claws of autumnly chill still clung relentlessly to the world, a jealous lover.
I let my eyes unfocus, my hands guiding the vehicle with the steadiness of years of routine. Through hazy eyes, it seemed the bus were merely running in place on a treadmill of gargantine proportions. The shadows of the street lamps flittered across the windshield, and I watched the world roll underneath us in a stop-motion film. I had no real need to drive, we would end up where we needed to be regardless. I liked driving. So I drove, need or no need.
A busdriver's life was never boring, as many might percieve. Quite on the contrary – not a day was the same. New passengers, new faces, new problems, new traffic, new weather. Every day a fresh start. Even more so in my job, as my stops weren't set in stone. My stops were wherever they needed to be, wherever someone had a need for them. Not a single lonely, abandoned stop did I have to skim past, wondering whether I had just skipped something of importance, which was why I didn't hesitate to pull over when the yellow bus-stop sign flashed up to my right.
The car went tictactictac, the wheels churned and threw gravel into the air, the brakes slammed shut. Every passenger was thrown forward an inch or two, but none bothered to complain; it would get them to their destination no faster. I flipped open the door and peered out into the not-morning. A field of long, brown grass undulated in the luke-warm southernly wind, swaying like a crowd would to a slow song from their favorite band. There was something comforting about their movement, hypnotic even. Behind them stretched out a vast lake, the name of which was written on a sign just far enough that I couldn't make out the letters. The first letter might have been an 'L'. The lake's glossy surface shimmered with low waves – faint ripples, more like – but not enough to distort the face of the reflected world that lurked beneath its creased face.
I had often wondered what it would be like to enter that upside-down world that we could almost touch on an autumn morning. I had looked at the yellowing leaves plummeting from the heavens and wondered if in that world they would be returning to their branches, grasping onto them, greeting them as an old friend, a warm, long embrace; I had wondered if in that world, they would be at the peak of their lives instead of rotting away. I had wondered if it were a better place to live in, if you were a leaf. I had often smiled while wondering.
A lonely shape was tracing a path through the dying grass, thousands of brown hands waving for help in her stead. The shape trodded on and I waited, watching her – for now I could make out the bulge of her breasts and the roundness of her hips – make her slow way across that field. She reached the double-doors, stumbling out of the brown lake. She was shivering violently, her hands tightly locked under her bosom, her knees turned inward to help keep her weight aloft. The short shirt and tight slacks she wore were soaked through, her hair resembled oily black pasta which had been over-cooked; a strand of what could only be an aquatic weed meshed with her hair. She looked young. Young, miserable, pretty.
”T-t-this is the 43 r-right?” Her lips quivered, her teeth clashed together.
”If that's the number you see up there in red,” I replied.
She craned her neck back and to the side, checked the numbers, seemed satisfied.
”R-right. Would you- you...” She closed her eyes as a shiver coursed through her spine. ”Would you have something w-warm? L-l-like a blank-blanket.”
”Yeah, I think so.” I turned to look down the aisle. ”Hey kid! Mind lending your jacket?”
The young man in the back jerked upright, nearly hitting his head on the ceiling. His eyes widened and he instinctively folded his arms on his chest. A shake of head, a scared look at the shivering girl outside.
”The jacket. She's gonna freeze to death,” I said, pun and all.
Hesitantly, the young man got out of his seat. He walked past the mother and infant, the former smiling encouragingly, the latter smiling at a safe dream, past the dark man up front, who continued to stare out the window, eyes locked on the lake.
”Come on in,” I told the girl, ”no sense standing out there in the wind.”
She alighted the stairs, teeth clenched together. The man reached her and awkwardly draped the jacket over her frail form like a cape. Her hands found the edges of the jacket and pulled it closer to her body. She sighed in gratitude, the sound coming in jerks through her trembling lips.
”T-thanks,” she murmured to the young man, who had suddenly grown highly interested with his shoes and then his fingers, then his shoes again, eyes darting. She looked up at me. ”I don't h-have anything to pay for the trip, exce-except this coin. I h-hope it's e... enough.”
She held out a golden coin. I indicated with my right hand for her to give it. She looked long at the wretched caricature of a hand I was offering her, then dropped the coin in it with a slight noise of disgust. I didn't hold it against her, nodded and waved the two young ones on. The jacketless man followed the girl to a seat and then sat in the one opposite her. She said something, he replied, she smiled shakily, he looked down, she said something else, her hand finding the weed in her hair. I closed the doors and returned to the road, steering with one hand. In the other I held the coin, clenched inside my fist. I drove one-handed for the next minute, then brought my other hand up to join its mate, devoid of anything monetary.
It took me a while to get to my next stop. We crossed through an urban maze, full of turns and twists and dead-ends like any proper city these days, dark corners and niches where the ugly things happened, tucked away from the pretty people. We drove straight, watched the buildings bow out of the way, nodding back. She, the bus, flashed her lights at them for good measure. The dark-skinned man in the front caught my eye questioningly in the mirror as we emerged from admist the tall, grey buildings, awkwardly stacked and bunched up – a toddler's Lego city, flashy, big and destroyed by the slightest kick. I forced a grim look onto my face and nodded at him, a slight inclination of my chin. His eyes hardened and he nodded back, gulped down his heart from his throat and returned his eyes to the scenery. I admired his instincts. Sharp lad. Strong, too.
A wide span of fields whizzed by, dotted with indifferent cows who swatted at flies with their tails. The lead bull looked up, alert, as we drove by, watched us rumble past. A farm-hand, complete with over-alls and a straw hat, fanned the air in front of him with his hat, scratching his head with the other hand, trying to find what the bull was looking so intently at. I saw him visibly jot down the bull's vigilance as stupidity as he slumped back to his tractor.
We crossed a long bridge, drove through a quiet forest, turned onto a dirt road, through a gaping iron gate. Well-tended fir trees on either side, natural walls; a circular road at the end of the drive-in large enough for a limo to turn in, the middle adorned with a fine assortment of flowers; a towering, white-washed mansion with high windows and a huge, brass door; gargoyles staring down as I parked the bus at the mouth of the circle, in front of the bus-stop.
A bent old man looked up from a pile of leaves he was currently shuffling off to join a larger pile; he leant on his rake, a banged-up stick with a couple of spikes left on it. I got out of the bus and walked to the man, wading through fallen leaves.
He greeted me with a slight bow. ”I'm afraid the Master is unavailable at this current time, good sir. If you were to come back tomorrow afternoon, I'm sure he would be more than happy to have you as a guest in his most humble home. Sir.”
I glanced over my shoulder at the daunting building. ”He in there?”
”Yes, but the Master isn't-”
”Trick question. I'm not here to see your master.”
”As you say, sir. May I inquire why you have come to the Master's home then, unannounced as it is?” There was a sharp quality to the old man's voice and his knobbled fingers tightened on the old rake.
I put on my most disarming smile. ”I'm here for you, actually.”
The old man squinted at me and my bus, parked primly in front of a bus stop he had most likely never seen before. ”What? Me? Are you Death? I'm not ready to go yet, thank you very much Mr. Death, sir. The Master is not in his prime years any longer and he has need of me. I'm afraid I can't leave.”
”I'm not Death, no. Oh, I wish I were; I'd get to wear a cool cloak and carry a sporty scythe. But alas, I'm merely a busdriver.” I jabbed a thumb back at the stop. ”The only reason that stop is there is because it's supposed to be there. Which means you're supposed to come aboard. That's all there is to it.”
”And what if I refuse?” Flat disapproval.
”Then you stay here, I drive off, we never see each other again.”
He made a harrumph sound. ”I'm more than fine with that. G'day, sir.”
”When I say never, I mean never.” That line was ageless, and always invoked the same response. His features froze in the act of scowling.
The old man looked at me for a long moment, taking in my appearance, comparing me to whatever expectation he had in his head concerning what I should look like. We stood there in the mansion's yard, looking at each other. Him with his elongated fork and lined face, me with my hands stuffed into my trouser pockets and my face neutral. He seemed to reach some conclusion and he turned away, started shuffling the leaves closer to the pile he had gathered into the middle of the spacious yard.
”A'right,” he muttered, ”a'right. But I'll finish this here job first. And that's all there is to it.”
I smiled, said ”OK,” and walked back to the bus. Multiple sets of eyes followed my progress over the lawn. I poked my head through the door and those eyes looked at me, questioningly.
”We're taking a short break. Get out and stretch your limbs if you like, but don't wander off too far. We leave when the old man's ready, and those left behind are left behind. Clear?”
Random nods.
”Good.”
My passengers filed out of the middle section and set to exploring the yard. The lake-girl bounded out first and scrambled off into the trees with a rustle of wet cloth on sharp branches, inviting a few peculiar looks from the other passengers. I let her go. She'd come back if she did. If not, then not. Life's simple like that. The mother and her child got out and wrestled in the grass, playing a home-made version of hide-and-seek. The dark-skinned man found a bench and sat on it, throwing his feet up onto a decorative stone, seemingly at ease. I went inside the bus and checked up and down the aisle out of pure habit. I found an unlit cigarette lying on the floor where it had rolled under a seat; there were no bins in sight so I pocketed it.
I found the young man loitering next to a stoned gargoyle. He was leaning on its right wing, looking at everything and nothing around him.
I greeted him. ”Did you know it's thought that a gargoyle's right wing is the one it uses to save over-confident travelers from death?”
His eyes might have stayed on the gargoyle for half a second longer than on anything else. ”Not much damn use now, is it?”
”Touché.”
I leant on the left wing and the young man shifted a few inches away from me. We watched the old gardener clear the grounds of leaves, one square meter at a time. He was bent intently over his rake and there was a subtle rhythm to his working. Rasp, rasp, rasp, pause. Rasp, rasp, pause. Rasp, rasp, rasp, pause. Rasp, rasp, pause. I had heard the expression of mundane chores having an 'art' to them, when they were performed properly and passionately, but had never believed it, marking it off as none-sense.
Now as I watched this elderly man methodically stack the leaves, the perfectly timed rasp of the rake tuned in with his bodily motion, the rake merely an extension of his body, I adjusted my stance on that particular belief. A slow smile, a rare genuine smile, seeped across my lips and for the next couple of hours I watched, mystefied, as the old man first slowly cleaned up one side of the lawn, and then the other with clinical precision – no, not clinical. The work was too passionate to be clinical. It was as if he were painting a new color over the lawn, his rake the brush, the grass his paint.
The young man beside me left once to take a leak, but returned soon after. He sauntered back, zipping up his jeans. ”What do they say about the left wing?”
”Hm?” I had been busy watching the mother breast-feed her child, fascinated.
He followed my gaze. ”Some people mights see that as, like, rude you know.”
”Yeah." I shifted my attention to him. "Was that what you said earlier?”
”Nah. Forget it.”
I forgot. Instead, I asked him: ”Why'd she run?”
He stiffened. ”I dunno, ask her.” His eyes were locked onto a brick in a wall.
”I would, but she's long gone.”
”Yeah. Yeah,” he said and we fell silent. I didn't feel like prodding further.
I watched the old man fetch a crickety cart in which he stacked the leaves high and transported them somewhere around the corner, came back, repeated.
”She said she had to find her boyfriend. They'd had a fight or somethin' or like. Last thing she remembers was the guy's face above hers, but sort of through a like... veil, she said. Had to go tell him she's sorry.”
I looked over at the young man. His face was set. He licked his lips.
”I said maybe he tried to drown her. She started crying. Said no, he'd never. Maybe yell and hit, but not kill, never. Said they'd apologize and have amazing sex and it would be all good then.”
I said, ”Yeah.” There was nothing more to say.
”Yeah,” he replied, nothing more to add.
The old gardener finally leaned the old rake against a huge oak tree, dusting his hands on his knees. He patted the shaft affectionally and gave the mansion behind him a sad look; he walked over to me. I squeezed the young man's shoulder and pointed him at the bus, met the old man half-way. He looked at me for a moment, face unreadable, then shrugged, shaking his head. He said:
”I believe this is the due payement.”
I accepted his softly beating coin and cupped my hands over my mouth. ”We're moving out, gang! Everyone on the bus, double-time!”
I held my right hand in front of me, palm up, golden coin in the middle. The gardener was looking over my shoulder, expectant. I sighed, preferring not to watch it happen. But this was an old man, an honest one too, so I obliged him the fullfilment of his curiosity. The old man watched on, weary eyes fascinated. The surface of the coin began to shimmer without any light playing on it, little bubbles appearing on the glowing metal. The skin around the coin twisted out and away from the coin, leaving the coin suspended above a black nothingness. A heartbeat sounded once, a faint, laboured sound, then the coin winked and plummetted down into the hole in my withered hand. It didn't come out of the other side. The skin crawled back into place, melding seamlessly.
The gardener looked at me strangely. Here it came; the question. Sometimes a statement. Always amusing.
”Didn't you use to drive with your right hand and accept the payement with the left?”
Not the question I was expecting. I grinned. Still amusing. ”How very keen of you. I did, indeed, but it seems tradition has to step down in the face of the future. They didn't take it into account when designing busses, I'm afraid, so I just have to make do like this. Times change and you change along or become obsolete.”
”Amen to that, my lad.”
I grunted, then, "Shall we?”
The old man and I were the last to get on the bus. Before we went inside, the old man abruptly stopped in front of the vehicle. I stopped too and looked at him, curious. His eyes were plastered to the red neon numbers; his eyes were leaking at the corners and there was a warm, salty smile on his face.
”The bus 343,” he said, dreamily, ”I thought this line didn't exist anymore.”
He looked at me, eyes wide and glinting happily. Marveled hands explored the surface of the bus.
”I used to ride this bus home every day from school when I was just a small boy.”
”I'm sure you did,” I answered. ”Let's get on inside. We've still got a few stops to go by.”
”Yes, yes. Of course,” he said, and started inside. ”What a wonder, just marvelous,” I heard him mutter as he walked by me.
I glanced at the red neon light on top of the windshield. A glaring horizontal line stared back at me. I flipped it off with my right hand and clambered into the bus and up into the driver's seat. The old man was seated right behind my seat, on the other side of the darkened window at my back. His eyes were fixed on the mansion, an odd smile on his face as we drove off. I looked back at the yard just before it was out of sight. Yellow and orange and red leaves covered the entire area of the lawn, everywhere except on the branches of a great oak. I hoped the old man hadn't see the leaves as well.
A weary rake leaned against the proud tree, smiling bitter-sweetly as the sound of the bus' engine withered away. Then it closed its eyes and stopped existing.
Spoiler! :
Hope you enjoyed and as always, any and all advice is highly valued! Toodles ~
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