Short Story

Hey guys,

This is one I've only started tonight, and as a result, I'm not very far into it, only about two pages. I do have plans for where it's going to go from here, so I'm not looking for suggestions. Actually, I might even add more tonight, but I have come to a point where I think it's reasonable to pause. It was inspired partially by a bus ride today, and a tree that I saw through the window. It was also partially inspired by Neverwhere (the book, not the graphic novel. I don't do graphic novels). Anyway, let me know what you think, and if you guys feel it's an enterprise worth continuing with. Also, keep in mind that this is simply a very unedited beginning and that there will be more later.

- Lena

The seats on the bus were more comfortable than the ones in Chicago, if only marginally so, but she didn’t feel comfortable in them. As she made her way up the narrow winding stairs of the double-decker bus they glared at her with their garish purple brightness. Probably some designer had wanted to make the seats look happier, more welcoming, she thought, but on this dingy January night, they only looked sad and forlorn, the way a Santa suit would look when it’s been worn too many times, or maybe the way your favorite childhood teddy bear looks when you’re thirty.

But she sat anyway, because, while the idea of riding on a London double-decker bus seems wildly appealing at first, no one tells you what a pain-in-the-ass it is to get up those stairs while the thing is moving. Sitting down, she felt her body relax into the seat, let the tiredness melt through her bones, and tried not to think of the hundreds of other people who’d sat in that very same seat before her, or of their germs.

Listening to the words flowing around her, she caught a few snippets of conversation, some in English, commuters heading home for the day, others in languages she couldn’t begin to comprehend. She caught bits of laughter, and thought to herself, ‘Why does laughter in a language you don’t understand always feel so much more derisive?’

Lyssa closed her eyes for a moment, trying to still the voices, and soon they faded to a jumbled roar inside her head, a roar so much easier to ignore than the laughter. Feeling tears build behind her eyes, she opened them, blinking surreptitiously to avoid any excessive displays of emotion. And the first thing she saw when she finally opened them was a skeleton.

The bare tree stood just outside the window, naked limbs and bony fingers reaching for the sky.
Lit by the yellow light of the lamp post, it looked eerily like the massive skeleton of some creature whose spirit had departed long ago, or perhaps like an abandoned spiderweb. A rustle of paper brought her back to reality as she looked sullenly downward, at the bags sitting heavily by her feet, jammed to overflowing with cotton and polyester, creaking leather boots waiting to be broken in, and ballet flats of dubious quality. She anticipated dragging them home from the bus with some dread, knowing that the four-flight trip up the stairs to her room would be less than pleasurable. But looking down just then, the bags felt empty. There wasn’t anything in them that truly mattered; just material, cloth that would be in a dumpster or decorating a consignment shop hanger a year from now.

She’d been up and down Oxford Street all day, meandering into stores hung with banners that declared “SALE 70% OFF!!!!,” and trying not to get crushed in the crowd. Now she was finally on her way home, and the darkness that fell early during the winter seemed haunted somehow.

This was not the London she’d come to see. She remembered staying up late, reading guidebooks until the sun rose. She remembered dreaming of the Tower. She’d marveled at its history, the millennia-old complex that had stood guard over London since the time when it was only a Roman trading outpost, since 64 a.d. She’d wanted to see the place that had so much of London wrapped up in it, that held the ghosts of history, that had housed royals and been the home of hope and tragedy. And instead she’d only encountered a centuries-old tourist trap, where silly Americans bought over-priced souvenirs and went to look at the collection of shiny rocks that was the crown jewels. Anger coloured her cheeks as she thought about it. Didn’t they know that there was so much more? She’d come for the history, to see the bones of a city that had existed for thousands of years, to feel small in the presence of something great. And she’d come to find …. something, although she didn’t quite know what it was yet.

So far, the London she’d seen had been one hopelessly shrouded in tourism, one that held only shiny baubles for the easily distracted, but she couldn’t help hoping that all the glitter hid a soul.

Looking up, she saw that she was still quite a few blocks away from her destination, and feeling the tiredness of her day wash over her again, she leaned back, placing her head against the hard plastic of the headrest and closed her eyes for a moment.

And upon opening them, realized she was in darkness. Sitting up, dread filled her as she sensed the kinks in her neck and back. She’d only closed her eyes for a moment, but the pains told her she’d been asleep for hours. Panic trickled down her spine like cold water, and her breathing came fast and shallow as she realized that she’d not only overslept her stop, but that she was entirely alone on the bus. The comforting breathing of the slightly portly man beside her was gone, as was the derisive laughter and the conversation. The air was still and dark, and the only sound she could hear was that of her own breathing, loud and ragged in the silence. Briefly, she noticed that she no longer had her shopping bags with her, but this worried her much less than the fact that she didn’t have the slightest clue where she was. Rising from the seat, with the accompanying pains of her legs having fallen asleep and the kinks in back, she grabbed her purse and stumbled down the bus’s staircase, falling outward onto the street. The streetlights were, oddly, unlit, but the moon presented a buttery glow, so she had enough light to see the abandoned street.

Her lungs filled with panic once more as she realized that the street, like the bus, was completely empty, with not a soul in sight. Leaning against the cold stone of a nearby building, she allowed it to support her as her knees collapsed and the tears began to flow down her face.

After a few minutes of crying, sense returned to her, and, of course, sensation finally returned to her legs, allowing her to stand and move on. She had, by this point, realized that she needed to find a way home, or find someone who could help her get home, and that leaning against a cold building in the dark wasn’t a particularly practical way to do this. Taking one last deep breath, straightening her clothes, which had been somewhat disarrayed in the stumble, and settling her purse across her shoulders, she set off down the street, and tried to look confident, for all she hoped that there wasn’t anyone watching.