The Bus Ride to Fugue (Part III) - by Hénock Gugsa

  The Bus Ride to Fugue
Part III
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by  Hénock Gugsa

For the next hour-and-thirty-seven minutes, the gray bus kept plodding ... plodding on the invisible route to Fugue. An hour and thirty-seven minutes is a mere 97 minutes. But in the current situation, it was an excruciatingly looong 5,820 seconds!

Under any other circumstance, such a length of passive time wouldn’t produce boredom or anxiety in me. I have a simple trick ... I’d start counting the seconds as I would imaginary sheep, and before I reached a hundred, I would be dozing off into a quiet slumber and wake up at 5,815 seconds. I normally give myself five seconds to come back to the land of the living after such slumber. However, this bus ride to Fugue was not, by any stretch of the imagination, the most ideal setting for a cozy nap.

The sense of dread that I and my two new friends were feeling was real and palpable. But even more alarming was my fear that ... that soon I would be losing my grip on reality and normalcy unless I got off this bus real soon. I was resisting the picture that was forming in my mind ... that we were actually in a boat on a body of water engulfed by a thick, misty darkness. This was very much like that final journey in old mythology. We were on the river Styx, this unknown highway to Fugue. Our boat was this dreary bus, and our Charon was the demonic driver with a twirling toothpick in his mouth.

Farther on, the bus stopped one more time to quickly pick up its last passenger. Our new fellow rider was a shy female who never once looked at anybody. Instead she kept her head bowed and walked briskly to the first available aisle seat. It was almost in the middle row, and she quietly sat down next to one of the zombies. He showed no reaction to the disruption of his solitary state, and like the other zombies maintained his listlessness.

“¡Dios mio! Una mujer, que bueno!” Pepe said excitedly.

“Calma te, Pepe,” exhorted Carlos. They both looked at me expectantly, hoping to get my reaction to the new development. But, I had nothing to say. What was there to say, anyway? I resumed counting my imaginary seconds (sheep?) as I had been rudely interrupted at 484. I had to recalibrate the clock in my head, and start counting again. I had to get to the safety of a nap post haste before I turned into one of the zombies.

However, my scheme was doomed from the start for two reasons. And they both concerned the new passenger. I began to get distress-fully worried for the shy girl sitting next to the morose zombie. And as if that nagging anxiety was not enough, Pepe’s spirits had now become freshly enlivened by the arrival of this girl in our midst. He just would not stop chattering. Carlos could do nothing but throw up his hands and roll his eyes heavenward in utter capitulation.

… Continues … in Part IV