The Bus Stop with No Bus
A bus stop, a fading timetable, and a group of strangers slowly realizing that the bus may no longer exist.
Photo: Unsplash.
The bus stop had a roof, a bench, and a timetable protected by cloudy plastic. These details gave it credibility.
At 6:20, four of us were waiting. At 6:35, there were seven. A man in a blue jacket read the timetable for the third time and announced that the bus was “probably experiencing traffic,” although the road had been empty long enough for grass to consider moving in.
An elderly woman arrived with two grocery bags. She looked at us, looked at the sign, and asked why we were standing there.
“The 18 bus,” somebody said.
“That stopped running in March.”
The timetable disagreed, but only because it had been printed the previous February. The route number on the pole was sun-faded yet authoritative. Seven phones appeared. The transit app showed the stop but no arrivals. A map app suggested walking forty-three minutes to another road.
The woman called her nephew. He arrived in a tiny car already carrying a folded ladder and three boxes of fruit. Somehow we fitted the groceries, the woman, and two of the stranded passengers inside. The rest of us began walking together.
Twenty minutes later, a bus passed in the opposite direction. It was marked NOT IN SERVICE and driven by someone who waved apologetically.
The next week, the timetable had been removed. The bench remained. Somebody taped a handwritten note to the pole:
Nice place to sit. No bus.