BUS RIDE

The bus creaked and shuddered along at a high speed. You could feel every bump through the barely padded seats. It was a late night, and the bus ride was excruciatingly long for me. It was the farthest away game of the season, and by the time we got the instruments stowed away, it was nearly 12:30 in the morning before we started back home. What made this ride even longer was the fact that Paula and I had just started that fun “I’m just going to pretend that nothing ever happened between us” phase of our high school relationship. We smiled politely at one another, asked how our day was going, but that was it. The bus wandered down back roads as Skittles tap-tap-tapped from one side of the floor to the other. The bus was at its normal noise level, which is to say it sounded like an international airport during Christmas. Ed and Bill were taunting the idiot tuba player, while Julie and Cory sang “Blister In The Sun” at volume levels usually reserved for concert halls. After the long bus ride to the game, and all the drama with Paula, I just wanted to be home. Headlights flashed past, and I could see Paula across the aisle from me. She was sitting next to one of her friends. The seat next to me was empty. I closed my eyes and leaned against the window, but the vibration was too much to let me sleep.
I had just finally started to drift off when I heard a whisper in my ear. “What’s going on?”
I opened my eyes to find Paula kneeling on the once empty seat, her face close to mine looking out my window. I was still in that near dream-state and disoriented. I started to say something to Paula about what was going on with us, when the light caught my eye. We were coming up on an area about a block long that was lit up like daylight. Fire trucks and cars were everywhere, parked along the side of the road. Lights were pointed and shining at the house like a movie set. As we slowed down to enter the edge of the light, I could see a blood fan splashed along the side of the road. There was a small girl in the ditch, and someone was covering her with a sheet. From where she lay, scars in the earth stretched across the field and into the brutally lit front yard. Large chunks of torn up sod and dark earth led to a smoldering car wrapped around a tree. Then I saw something I’ll never forget. In the center of this unnatural daylight, in the middle of this stranger’s front yard, was a disheveled man on his knees staring out into the darkness. As our bus crept past, he seemed to be looking right at us, but I don’t think he ever even knew we were there. He burned a hole right through us. He never blinked. He never moved. He seemed haunted and lost in an emotional state somewhere between serene acceptance and complete chaos.
In that moment we knew that whatever horror had just happened here, he had been responsible. Though we never were able to find out the exact details, we had seen the weight of Hell in that man’s stare. As we passed by, Paula placed her hand in mine. I held it tight. The artificial daylight was again swallowed by the night, and the bus resumed a speed that was slower than before. It was a speed like that of funeral procession; one that showed some kind of respect in its own small way. It was quiet as a tomb for the rest of the journey. Nothing but the sound of the Skittles skipping and sliding from one side to the other. I think everybody on that bus found someone to hold hands with the rest of the way home, and I know I held tighter to Paula’s than I ever had before.