the last bus

He was very clearly sat on the bench there, under the bus shelter, and yet the No. 23 just rattled by as though Tommy weren't real. The street had faded to several shades of gray, movement and sound were muted at the darkened hour. These facts probably lent to why the bus operator blew past the stop. There could be a hundred reasons why the bus left Tommy alone on that bench that weren't at all related to Tommy. The man at the wheel could be exhausted, stressed, hungover, or worse, drunk.

But the truth was that Tommy was bland. Forgettable. Unremarkable. Tommy was exactly the man that a bus operator wouldn't even see as he rolled by, focused on safety and a prompt return to the bus barn at the end of a long day's work. Tommy preferred to mull over the hundred unknowable reasons why he had been left at the bus shelter, but deep down, he knew he was that unseen man. He had always known, and there were days when he was lonely.

Tommy was pale. He had weak shoulders and downturned eyes that always looked weary. The number of years he'd walked the earth was tough to guess. He often passed for a sullen youth who had been callously shunted about by the world. However, every so often Tommy was startled, even offended, by the odd salesclerk who asked whether he wanted the lower rate accorded to the elderly crowd.

The truth was that Tommy was forty. A most humdrum age, really, regardless of the focus our culture places upon the whoa! 4-0. Tommy hadn't done much to celebrate what can often be a landmark event for others. Nobody had even called, and so, the truth seemed to be that the day had been the same as any other. No party hats, no cake, no sweet embrace.

As the hour grew later and the atmosphere dampened, Tommy thought about aloneness. An only son of parents now deceased, each parent had been an only son and daughter, themselves. No one was very close to Tommy. He worked from home; the computer was good company.

He heard the sounds of passers-by on the pavement adjacent but not fear, care, or concern compelled Tommy to turn and look. He was rankled, yet, by the bus operator's apparent neglect, huffy about yet more proof that he was overlooked. As he stewed, alone, not even alert for the next bus, Tommy's thoughts turned to a concept he had learned once. A concept? Perhaps more of a hopeful theory than a concept, really. He wasn't sure what to call the old, unnamed thought that had suddenly popped up.

The theory had been presented to Tommy by happenstance. He frankly could not remember when or where, but at a moment not-too-long ago, he had heard two people talk about a strange way to look at death and the dead. Perhaps the theory (or more of a hope, really?) had been part of an exchange between two characters on a show he had seen, or two strangers on the bus, or two unknown women who had been sat near Tommy at the coffee shop he frequented each early day. He just couldn't recall.

Nevertheless, Tommy was suddenly absorbed by the memory of overheard conjecture - real and spontaneous or authored and acted out, he couldn't say - and the general tenet follows: A deceased person keeps a hold on the mortal world - can't truly be dead - as long as those who personally knew the deceased speak about that person.

He chuckled aloud, now, almost embarrassed that he had stored such preposterous stuff amongst those many scrambled neural pathways, all cradled softly by the skull. As though that knowledge was of any consequence... The concept was the stuff of hollow fantasy, he knew - why, the theory was unprovable and to be honest, too sweet and gooey for Tommy's tastes. What romance, he thought, to hold fast to someone who has gone only by hope that her name, spoken aloud, shall keep her connected to her mortal presence!

But Tommy's scornful laughter was cut short by the very next thought to scooch along those battered neural pathways and dump upon Tommy's self-awareness. But what, Tommy then thought, what of those who haven't passed on but have no one to speak of them? What are they, then? The undead, not gone but not really here? Could that be me, he thought, a placeholder? A dull soul doomed to roam about the planet squatted here between blood and bone, a body and soul so unremarkable that the No. 23 bus - a bus taken by me nearly every day for the past twelve years, by the way - goes dead past, not even a pause? Can the truth perhaps be that my body cannot be seen?

At that moment, Tommy was very much alone on the now-dark street, the bus shelter a three-walled guard from the colder gusts that suggested a storm could come along to add sound and texture to the hushed hours between dusk and dawn. There was such a look about Tommy just at that moment - forlorn and wounded. He stared vacantly at the curb where the pavement met the street, watched dark leaves turned round and round by the unseen storm, and felt as a ghost. Boo.

Tommy couldn't remember when he had ever felt so low.

All at once, he saw the beams of another bus down the street, far to the left of where he sat. He stood, even though the bus was far away enough that he couldn't yet hear the rumble of the motor. He stood, resolute: He would be seen.

Cold, damp gusts blew around Tommy, stung the eyes and naturally made the body burrow deeper beneath the brown woolen coat and scarf he wore. Perhaps the blasts of cold were the reason why a lonely tear escaped one eye and dropped slowly down Tommy's cheek, but perhaps not. The bus appeared to slow and Tommy felt tense: Would he be seen? Would the bus stop?

The bus stopped. A yellow glow came through the glass panels that stretched the length of the huge apparatus and as the door folded open, Tommy's wet face got a heated blast that smelled of dust, damp rubber, and comfort. The bus operator suddenly caught the eye of our lonesome traveler; she was new. She was lovely, far too lovely to be a bus operator scheduled to work graveyard. She looked plumb square at Tommy and laughed, "Hello! Don't keep us - come on up!"

The truth was that Tommy was dazzled by her. For a short moment, unable to focus or react. Then, good sense and good manners on the rebound, he ascended the steps of the bus and handed her the fare. She beamed at Tommy.

"Lucky you - last bus!" she laughed. Tommy glanced back and saw that the bus was empty, save the two of them. "Have a seat up front? Keep me company?" she asked. She jabbed at her nametag and told Tommy, "Name's Hannah - what's yours?"

Tommy was overwhelmed. Bashful and dumb, he sat. "T...Tommy," he stuttered, at last. Hannah laughed once more. Tommy thought of bells. Hannah began to chat as Tommy relaxed slowly onto the old green bench seat, muscles softened by heat and a balm of contentment. He was not a ghost. Hannah chattered on and Tommy was happy.

He had been seen.