Bookmark #33

There’s a bus. It can take you anywhere – anywhere you feel like, wherever you want to be, wherever you long for as long as you can name ‘anywhere’. They say, if you don’t know your destination, the bus can’t do shit about it and the conductor? He’s a dummy. There are no charts, and there are no schedules. There’s only one destination, the one you name as you board it.

You see everyone getting on-board, and before you can realise, you’re standing before the doors. There’s something about all those people going together, they might know something about it, right? You wonder. As you stand in front of the doors, you see they’re just naming places off the top of their heads or listening in on what the person before them said, and you see this beautiful chaos erupting at the doors of this bus.

You see the conductor smiling, almost as if he knows that no one on the bus wants to be where they are, and yet, they’re choosing places they don’t even know. You look around, and you see a thousand people like you. It’s almost like you’re looking at a thousand mirrors; their perplexed expressions are mirroring yours. “Damned if you get in, damned if you don’t, eh?” The person standing right beside you says in a tone imitating wisdom but you know he’s just stuck.

So, you turn around and sit on the bench at the bus stop. You look at your watch and whisper, “I’ve got time, I’ll figure it out”, and as you take your time, you meet people from both groups. You meet a thousand people who know and a thousand who don’t.

You now take the bus. However, you know a few different places now so you figure you can always come back to the bus stop. Time passes. The bus becomes your best friend. The conductor knows you’re a regular. Perhaps, the only one. He smiles. So does the driver. Something about the way they look at you says they know that you’ve figured it out.

One day, a sense of deja vu hits you as you look at the bus waiting for its passengers for the day. You see this person, petrified, confused, looking around cluelessly. You see him turn around. You see him walk toward you. “You seem like an expert, can you tell me where to go?” He mumbles.

You smile, “I finally do.”

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