The Seat of the Soul

The morning was cold and dark with a sharp wind that pulled at my hair. I shifted my weight from one foot to the other, attempting to keep warm.

Hurry up, bus!

I looked down at my phone, 6:03 AM. The bus was late, and soon I would be too. I craned my neck in both directions trying to catch a glimpse. What was taking so long?

Finally the old clunker turned around the corner and I let out a short breath of relief. The bus screeched to a stop and I waited as the other people in front of me paid their fares. After scanning my bus card, I looked around the full bus to see that there were only a couple of open seats left. I sized up my options, a seat near the front where a sleeping man slumped halfway into the open seat next to him, or next to an older man with an ivy cap and a plaid green button up. Older man it is.

He looked up as I approached and I flashed him a smile and an awkward wave before sitting down. The bus lurched to a start and I had to brace my arm against the back of the seat in front of us to avoid smashing my face into it.

“How are you today?”

It took me a moment to realize that the old man was speaking to me.

“Ummm, great now that the bus is here. I just hope that I’m not too late to work. How are you?”

The man shrugged, “How is the ant that maintains the nest or the cow that endlessly chews its cud, unaware of its fates?”

I looked away, taken aback. He didn’t seem to notice, and went on.

“Do you think that this is what life is supposed to be like?”

“Whoa, a little early for such big questions don't you think?” I chuckled to lighten the mood.

“Did you not ask yourself that this morning when you woke up to go to work at the House of Flapjacks?”

My smile died, “How’d you…?” I trailed off when he pointed to the logo on my shirt. I looked up from my shirt and into his eyes which were so intense and probing that I had to look away. I started to wonder if getting drooled on by the sleeping man would've been a better alternative.

“Let me ask you another question, do you ever think of death?”

I shifted in my seat, prepared to get up. He raised his hand to stop me, “come on, humor an old man. It’s something that I’m starting to think more about the older I get.”

“I’m only twenty-one, I think it's a long way off still.”

“Perhaps not as long as you think, my son died when he was eighteen.”

My tone softened, “I’m sorry for your loss.”

The old man nodded, “It's been a while now but I still think of him everyday.”

I remained silent, what else was I supposed to say?

“At least you will see him again in heaven.”

The man fell into a laughing fit and I stared at him in disbelief. Could this morning get any weirder?

When he stopped, he looked at me, a coy smile on his face, “Do you know something that I don’t? Have you ever seen heaven?”

I looked down, and fiddled with the sleeve of my jacket, “Well no, but-”

He cut me off, “So, you can’t tell me this for sure, can you?”

“I guess not, but that’s what faith is all about, right?”

“Ahh, yes, faith. Such an important thing to have, but what if you don’t have it? What are you supposed to do then?”

I kept silent, I could tell that he wanted to answer the question himself.

“I suppose the only thing you can do is find proof, some sort of evidence to back up your faith.”

The older man suddenly looked up and raised his hand to yank the cord that hung along the length of the bus.

“This is me.”

The bus rolled to a stop and hissed. Both sets of doors clattered as they opened.

“Have a good day at work, little worker bee.” He smiled, his teeth were dull and stained.

He shuffled through the small space between my legs and the seats in front of ours. Once he was in the aisle, he tipped his hat to me and got off of the bus. He stared at me through the glass doors, that same smile on his lips. The bus started to move forward but the man kept eye contact with me. I turned in my seat to watch him as we drove away.

I shook my head and ran a hand through my hair, suddenly exhausted from the exchange. I let out a breath and looked down to see a briefcase that I hadn’t noticed before. The man must’ve been so preoccupied with freaking me out that he forgot all about it. I thought about giving it to the bus driver but his shift would probably be over by the time the old man got back on the bus, if he did at all, and who knew if the next driver would actually care to do something about it. The briefcase would probably end up in a lost and found somewhere. I pulled it up onto the seat he had vacated. As unnerving as he had been, he still deserved to get his stuff back. Maybe his information was written somewhere inside and I could drop it off or call him to come pick it up. It was an old style brown briefcase with those two latches that held the two sides closed. I pressed the buttons and the latches flew up.

I opened the briefcase and was surprised to see that its contents were so sparse. There was a large manila envelope and a little black book. I opened the manila envelope first and then quickly shut it again. I looked around to make sure that no one had been watching. Everyone was either sleeping, looking out the windows, or on their phones. I slowly opened the envelope again and stared at the two wads of cash that were inside. The hundred dollar bills were held together by a paper band that had 10,000 written on it. What was this man doing walking around with $20,000 in cash?

Next to the money was a single key and a slip of paper. I grabbed the paper and saw that it had an address written on it, maybe he was buying a house? I brought my phone out of my pocket and entered the address into google maps. The address was only a few miles from my house but an old dilapidated warehouse came up as an image. So, clearly it was not his house. I put my phone down on my lap and put the slip of paper back in the envelope before closing it.

I grabbed the little black book hoping to gleam some answers from it. I opened the front cover expecting to see a name, a number, an address, something. It was blank. I flipped through the pages until I saw writing but it was not the writing that drew my attention.

There were drawings of Jesus and a figure of light and nature landscapes. The next page I flipped to had the drawing of a person with muddled writing, “The seat of the soul is thought to be in the throat.” I found myself whispering the words aloud.

I flipped the page again, “Near Death Experiencers claim to see visions of heaven and…” the rest of the sentence was scribbled out.

I skipped a few pages, “bring subjects to the edge of death for a period of seven minutes and then stabilize.”

I looked up, was I on ‘Pranked’ or something? A familiar building entered my line of sight as we drove by. I almost fell in my attempt to pull the cord. I threw everything back into the briefcase and snapped it closed. I hurried out of my seat and lost my balance as the bus suddenly stopped. I grabbed onto the railing with one hand and the briefcase fell out of my other. I grabbed it and ran off of the bus.