Bus Stop

You slouch down in your seat, watching raindrops slant against the dim windows. Your face falls into a comfortably strange resting state and you worry you may fall asleep before your stop. You aren't cold but your skin lightly crawls. It's a shiver caused by someone's gaze, knowing the stranger across the aisle is staring at you without even glancing their way. Your stomach tenses instinctually.

A thread of exaggerated thoughts begins to play out what might happen if you looked their way and held their gaze; you imagine being telepathically informed the exact time and location of your death, and somehow believing it without skepticism. The reality of the intensity of these eyes upon you drags you out of your thoughts.

You suddenly catch a whiff of something quite foul, and are unable to categorize it. The scent brings back half of a memory, which skirts the outer rim of your thoughts and vanishes down your spine. You realize you've been staring straight ahead without blinking and are unaware of how long. You pick up your phone and aimlessly flip through your camera roll. You feel the need to alert someone of your location but can't remember the number of your bus and can't tear your eyes from your screen. You realize you've forgotten your name.

Rapidly scrolling through your photos, you stop abruptly at one dated two weeks earlier. Your stomach drops as you realize it's a photo of you sitting on the bus in the same seat and outfit you are now. The impossibility of this barely registers and you feel your heart ricocheting against your chest. Without looking you know the stranger staring at you is grinning. A call pops up on your phone. You don't recognize the area code. You feel your head turn towards the stranger with a force outside of your jurisdiction, and see their wretched grin. Without that smile, their appearance strikes you as friendly and uninhibited. Like someone you'd approach in a club and talk to; but due to the circumstances you're struck with an unnervingly thick, primal fear of this human.

You realize they have a phone to their ear, and are gesturing suggestively to it. A nod towards you snaps you out of your current daze and you fumble with your own phone, shakily blocking the number they somehow called you from. You're staring straight ahead again and you hear the stranger emit a quiet giggle, and a second later your phone buzzes again. It's an entirely different number. You know who it is. Your version blurs with tears as you begin to block numbers every ten seconds before giving up. You turn your phone off. Your phone starts to buzz again. You shut your eyes tightly, hoping the squeezing will eradicate the evil, but you feel someone taking the seat beside you. You gasp for breath and an arm slips around your waist. The bus roars past your stop. ✘