Tag: short-story

Bus Stop

Standing there in the early morning chill, the same group as every day, looking out toward the eastern sky as the sun slowly crept a little bit higher over the horizon, they waited for the bus to arrive, the #99 route. Some looked into their devices in defeated attempts at stimulation. Others kicked at the ice and watched the steam from everyone’s breath push into a common cloud before dissipating quickly. No one spoke, as was customary. They’d shared that common morning bus stop experience with each other for only a few months as it were; certainly not long enough to break the ice metaphorically with risky words of introduction. They could just kick at the real ice on the sidewalk, silently, each one on their own, the need for connection not galvanizing enough to chip away at the barriers between them. 

The bus came exactly on time, as it always did. The soft voice of the recording coming through the speakers implanted around the bus shelter gently imparted the message: “Number 99 approaching. Number 99 approaching.” The doors slid open silently and the commuters shuffled aboard in single file, a solitary beep registering each individual’s presence through a code scan. There were no bus drivers anymore, of course. Only a few of the elderly souls on the bus even remembered a time when there were actual people driving the bus, everyone else having only heard strange tales of a time when humans operated vehicles.

Not that everyone looked back on such times with warm nostalgic remembrance. Mr. McMahon, for one, seated at the front of the new model cyberbus was thankful everyday for many things, including the smooth ride along the route.  Just thinking back to the old times physically pained him, as well as psychically. He had suffered organ damage due to the quick acceleration and sudden hard braking habitually done by the bus drivers of the past. They would usually ratchet it up to 40 or 45 miles per hour leaving one bus stop before quickly braking to a stop upon reaching the next one, causing poor Mr. McMahon and others to feel like internally, things were shifting, and not in a good way.

He did miss talking to the bus drivers, however. In days gone by, he had liked to sit in the front and talk with the driver. Now, that was impossible. He and Richard, his old driver on this route, would talk about the baseball scores or other sports news. They would sometimes discuss their family situation, things like that. It was nice to have that interaction. He was also considerate of the other passengers on the bus who were not chatting with the driver. Mr. McMahon felt that they enjoyed listening in on the conversation, that it was comforting to them somehow; just the sound of human voices discussing nothing of any real significant importance.

On the #99 Cyberbus, there was no talking. The sound coming out of the speakers was very low. Cartoon music and puerile dialogue in high-pitched voices was the mandatory soundtrack for the passengers on the bus, while the LED strips overhead switched between various primary colors. The experience of riding the cyberbus felt like a cross between being at a nightclub and a daycare.

Mr. McMahon was on his way to work at the discount supermarket. For even though he was well into his eighth decade of life, he still enjoyed working and there were no other alternatives for him anyway. The rest of his family was already deceased, and he had no known relatives to go live with. The senior care facilities had all been closed down by the health care companies. Social security funds had been absorbed into defense spending. So, what was left to do but keep working. Riding the cyberbus to work was relaxing for Mr McMahon. While everyone else mostly stared down into their device screens, he gazed off into the distance, reminiscing or ruminating about some ideas and theories that he’d carried around inside his head for many decades, still trying to work out the particulars.

Mr. McMahon greeted everyone as he walked into the break room to put his uniform on and clock in. He always had a kind word for everyone else. Perhaps, him being so elderly and genuine, no one viewed him as a threat or a weirdo, or as anything other than what he was: a gentle, elderly man; a bit melancholy at times, perhaps, but, for the most part, always up and at ‘em and ready to chat with anyone.

He proceeded out onto the shop floor to work his shift. He would clock out in the early afternoon and then, before boarding the Cyberbus #99 to return to his apartment, he usually liked to get a small cup of coffee and sit and gaze out the window for a while, remembering people from his past, family and friends. Random poems formed in his head, composed of a lines he heard in the store today mixed with something his father had said to him seventy years before. It was funny how it all worked out, how the lines seemed to go together so well; like his brain had been waiting for just the right words to complete the phrase that sat in his head for seventy years. He smiled and put on his coat as he saw the bus approaching.

Lawn Care

Because of all the rain, horseweed was a real menace in that summer of ‘77. It grew as high as the second story windows of most homes in our comfortable and usually well-trimmed suburban housing development. For all of the adults and children in the neighborhood, nearly all white and middle class, each summer had usually taken on a similar, familiar tenor; the rhythm of the days and nights, the typical sounds of the birds and insects, the daily yapping of the common little doggies begging to be let back into the house and the excited and happy cries of all the children as they played on the lawns till sundown, their joy replaced by aggravation and turmoil as they tried to swat away the swarms of mosquitoes on their way back to their comfy homes for the evening, mom and dad leafing through magazines or doing the crossword in the dim lighting of the family room, windows open and ceiling fans slowly whirring silently. Bob usually spent his days in a chaise lounge out by his pool, laying there in shorts and a t-shirt, Bob Seger playing on his portable cassette deck.

His wife Carol had gone up to New England for a couple months to take care of her ailing mother. The kids were all grown and out of the house. So, Bob took advantage of his alone time, so to speak, to just sit by the pool, only getting up from his chair to grill a hamburger at lunch time. He stopped shaving in the morning and then stopped brushing his teeth as well. He slept in the same shorts and t-shirt that he wore all day sitting by the pool. He was alone and he liked it that way. By mid-June, because of all the rain and Bob’s disinterest in any mowing or lawn care, the neighbors couldn’t even see him sitting by his pool, the grass and weeds having grown so high that they lost their view, only the sound of the song Night Moves emanating out from a tinny speaker through all the foliage and beyond the yard.

The horseweed stocks were so tall and thick that small children would have been able to climb them. Chickenweed stretched out and smothered the chain link fence. Duckweed vines grew up and around the horseweed stalks while catweed heads spread their seed pods shooting off in all directions. Foxweed grew out of every crack in the walkway and paved patio around the pool and the wormweed climbed up high up every light post and telephone pole, wrapping them in a shimmery semi-verdant glow. Insects and moths of all types crawled, flew and flitted throughout the weed jungle of the yard as Bob sat there contentedly. He didn’t read. He wasn’t smoking or drinking. For the most part, he just sat there. He must be sad, everyone thought, or have an active imagination, some people said, giving him the benefit of the doubt.

Carol came back from New England one Friday morning and unloaded her luggage from the station wagon. She thought that her husband would come out and help her but he didn’t seem to be about. The house was a mess. Half eaten cans of baked beans filled the kitchen. As she looked out the window above the sink, she was shocked that her backyard had been replaced by a foreign landscape. She thought she glimpsed her husband lying by the pool, amongst the tallest weeds she had ever seen.

Carol didn’t know whether to be angry or concerned, or afraid. The travel was disorienting enough, but then to arrive home and find a mess of this proportion was extremely disconcerting. She started to have a go at cleaning up the kitchen but, after about thirty seconds, she gave up and threw some sticky cans back in the sink. She went to the bathroom to wash her hands, and saw more grime and noticed a disgusting smell emanating from the hand towel. She could see that the shower had not been used in some time. Gingerly, she stepped out of the bathroom, down the hall and toward the back door.

She grabbed the door handle and pulled it open. She slowly stepped out onto the walkway as the insects swarmed back and forth among the horseweed and the dogweed and the catweed.

“Bob!” she called out, not wanting to walk any further out into the backyard jungle. Who knows what kind of poisonous creatures lied in wait for her, she thought. As she contemplated whether to advance further or retreat into the house, her husband came walking down the path toward her. “Hi honey. I’m glad you made it back ok.” He gave her a kiss on the cheek and she reeled back from the smell of his breath.

“How was your trip?” he asked and looked at her smiling. When he took in her horrified expression, it reminded him of how he must look. “Oh, the beard. Yeah. I’m going to shave. Don’t worry.” Carol, put a hand up to her mouth and surveyed the yard with the same look of incomprehension. Bob turned and looked over his shoulder. “Oh yeah, the yard too. Kind of messy. Right?” He strode past her to the refrigerator and grabbed a can of RC Cola. He opened it and took a chug, suppressed a belch, and motioned toward the bedroom with his chin.

“Tell you what. Why don’t you go unpack and relax a bit and I’ll get everything straightened up.” Without waiting for an answer, he took another gulp, this time not bothering to suppress the belch. He wiped his mouth and headed out to the garage where he, without hesitation, started the lawnmower and steered it toward the front yard. Carol wheeled her suitcase upstairs into the bedroom and closed the door. She unzipped the luggage and opened it, but then sat on the bed and then laid down to stare at the ceiling and try to process what she was witnessing, and why. What was happening to her husband, she asked herself? She soon fell asleep, a deep slumber not occasioned by exhaustion as much as by the brain’s unwillingness to comprehend something so strange and potentially threatening.

She awoke to the voice of her husband beckoning her to open her eyes. It was late afternoon, she could tell by the sky looking out her window. She swallowed, trying to get the bad state out of her mouth, and turned her head to see her husband standing there, looking very clean and handsome. “Wow, honey. You were asleep for quite a while. You must be hungry, I figure. So why don’t we go out to eat at McGlynn’s. It’s Friday after all. I’ll give you a bit to get ready.” He bent down and gave her a kiss on the cheek and went back out of the bedroom.

Carol raised herself up and looked around. She gazed out the window overlooking the back yard and saw that it was looking neat and clean. There were no weeds, the grass was cut and the pool was shimmering in the late afternoon sun. She shook her head, disbelievingly, and scampered downstairs to the kitchen, where everything had been cleaned and put away. There was no trace of any mess whatsoever. She looked at Bob, who sat at the kitchen table reading the newspaper. He looked up at her and smiled. “Ready to go?”, he asked.