Final Destination

What does a bus stop mean to someone? Well, to most it’s just a temporary resting place. Unimportant to the overall journey. Just a place to wait for the bus to take you to where you want to go. But to one girl, the bus stop was her destination.

            Never having been outside her room, her only form of escape was to look out the window and imagine herself standing at that bus stop. Because she had been trapped inside her whole life, she couldn’t fathom that there was anything beyond the bus stop. People simply got there, and then were whisked away. Gone. She didn’t care about where she’d go, she just wanted to stand, breathing in the not-so-fresh air, maybe sit down at the bench, maybe talk to one of the people sitting there. It was the most exotic place in her small, lonely world.

            She didn’t understand why people at the bus stop never acknowledged each other, let alone talk. Occasionally late at night two people would come together, but it was always dark, and she would be asleep. If she had someone to talk to, she knew she would “talk their ears off,” as her mother always said.

            Her mother said a lot of things. So did she. But she didn’t have anything to talk about anymore. And nobody to talk to. She would make up stories about the people waiting for the bus. The man wearing a lot of makeup, the woman wearing sweatpants. The little boy looking curiously at her through the window. She waved and he looked away. How rude, her mother would have said.

            She wanted to leave her confines so badly, but as time went on, the urge to try to escape was fading. She never understood why she couldn’t just walk out of her room, but something held her back. She spent her days curled in bed, or staring out her window. She was hot all the time but no matter how wide she opened the window she couldn’t get enough air to cool her down. Nor could she just jump out of it.

            Two people were standing next to each other at the bus stop talking quietly. Too quietly that she couldn’t quite make out what they were saying as much as she strained her ears. She sighed and got back into bed pulling the covers over her pale body.

~✺~

“I hate going to this bus stop. Always gives me the creeps.”

“Really? Why?”

“Do you see that broken down abandoned looking house right there? There was a fire and a little girl died, but they never found her body. Sad.”

“Well here’s our bus, let’s get out of here.”