Super Short Fiction -- And So I Sat

The wind blew out of the west, cold and sudden. A cloud was over there. You see. Where I'm pointing. Over there.

That wrapper that was blowing around, the Payday one, that one wasn't mine.

I didn't cry, sitting there and if I did, it was the sand, the sand from the playground. It was windy, after all.

I saw the bus, across the park, on the street, heading where buses head on that street, through stoplights and past places people either are, will be or have been.

I don't know if the bus had anyone in it.

I could've been in that bus.

It went, with a farting cloud of black diesel exhaust. Black. Like my heart.

I could've sat in the back of the bus, staring at the one guy, nationality unknown, so drunk that you couldn't even smell his urine from when he pissed himself. In my book, that's quite an accomplishment.

I could've watched him slobber and drool on the seat, a long bubbly strand falling down, off the seat, drifting down to the floor, which was dirty, dusty and seemingly in need of a good infusion of drool.

Cars would whiz by outside the darkened windows. The bus would go fast, slow down, go fast again. A big, aged rock star, practicing tantric sex, trying not to cum too fast.

There were honks and yells outside but none of them were me. I listened to the yelling. I didn't hear the words, only the pain. The words are what we all focus on, those very loud words, as if they're important, but it's almost never them, it's almost never what they mean. It's almost always something else, something hidden, lying beneath.

We'd ride, me and my friend with the drool. Who knows? He could be my friend. Maybe.

Past more stores and offices, places of business where businessy people did businessy things in hopes that business would be good to them. For love or money, in this case, it was the latter.

She wasn't in any of them. She was later, further on down the line, at least, if she was there at all.

Sometimes the bus broke suddenly. I grabbed on to pole next to me, an aluminum pole. How many people had grabbed that pole before me? How many people grabbed on to it? To something? There's always a time when we need to grab on.

The bus doors opened, sometimes, and no one came on. No one. I could see them you know. They took whatever seat they wanted. There were lots of empties. Lots to choose from.

I felt my heart sometimes. It was beating. That was good I told myself. Hearts should beat. I remembered my head, on her breast, listening to her heart.

It went thumpity, thump, thump, thump.

Mine skipped when she was near. Hers, not so much.

It was in the papers, about the wedding. Or, I should say, the one paper. The afternoon paper was gone, sort of like hayrides in the autumn, with that girl you always wanted to kiss but never got the nerve to but thought you might could under a full harvest moon in a bouncy cart filled with hay.

Gone.

Another street done gone. Always going, the bus. One more stop, then on to the other, always ahead, always forward. Going and going and going.

She said she was going. She didn't smile or cry. It wasn't me, she said, meaning me, you know, and not her. It was what it was, as if it could be explained by being something else. It was so totally one with its wasness. It just, was.

I didn't know him. He had a name but I forget. She gave up her last name, like it wasn't an important part of her at all, like, a snake shedding a skin. She took his because she was his had become his and anyways, it was what it was.

I sat listening to the wind as the cloud came closer. It was cold now. The bus across the street started to roll with the evening traffic. The light had changed.

I wanted to roll with it, down the line, to where she was, if she was there at all.

But I knew better than that, so I sat, still, frozen, on the bench.

At least my drool didn't stretch down to the grimy, dirty, dusty floor.



Copyright 2011, M.R. Caffery. All rights reserved.