Bus Stop (a story)
This is one I wrote
a few years ago ... it was inspired by this 20 minute radiolab (one of my
favorite): http://www.radiolab.org/blogs/radiolab-blog/2010/mar/23/the-bus-stop/
Bus Stop by Jason Campbell
The colors of the day were brighter than my memory of daylight. Maybe I would go out and find a game of pick-up ball. I wonder if Louvenski would want to help me get up a game. I jump up, slowly, and look for my ball glove. Itʼs got to be around her somewhere. Where is it? I will have to go bare-handed. I must be out. I must go out and find some friends. I canʼt miss this beautiful day. So out of my room I go and down the wide hall toward the sunshine motes floating through glass doors.
Its then that someone stops me. Its a nurse or something. A man asking me questions. Why is he doing this? Doesnʼt he know that I want to play ball. My friends are waiting for me.
Then suddenly, he letʼs me go. A dim light seemed to register in his head and his lips stopped moving. He stepped aside and I walked out the door. I saw the bus stop and wondered if that would help. I sat down on the bench, feeling a little weary on my feet. I wonder when the bus comes? It sounds fun to make an escape for somewhere new or old. It is then that I look at myself and see I am a senile old man, lost again in my memories. All the places I have been ... and now I live in and out of memories. The line that time runs down has now puddled in such a way that I live in the past and present and future all at once or with splashes here and there.
I donʼt even remember why I came out here.
The sunlight really is beautiful. When my children were young, we used to go for woodland walks on days like this. My wife loved to walk. We even had a place weʼd go that my daughter named the light place. It was a forest trail that dumped out into a hillside clearing and the light would run right down the hill and spill all over you in that valley as you emerged from the woods. What a lovely thing to walk such trails with your family ... even in hard times.
Why is life so hard?
I have seen hard times upon the faces of others and I have known hard times. I have caused hard times for others ... this is what is hard for me. To know that I have hurt other people, people that I love and care about. Sometimes there is no way that I know to make it right again. It remains broken and fragmented with no one to pick it up. The fragments must just travel on in different directions, hoping that others will find a way to sand down the rough edges where the break took place, hoping that others can sew and seam so they wonʼt continue to split and tear.
Is this bus coming? I donʼt care anymore. I am happy sitting in the sun, sitting in my time puddle ... this new, old place I now inhabit.
Bus Stop by Jason Campbell
The colors of the day were brighter than my memory of daylight. Maybe I would go out and find a game of pick-up ball. I wonder if Louvenski would want to help me get up a game. I jump up, slowly, and look for my ball glove. Itʼs got to be around her somewhere. Where is it? I will have to go bare-handed. I must be out. I must go out and find some friends. I canʼt miss this beautiful day. So out of my room I go and down the wide hall toward the sunshine motes floating through glass doors.
Its then that someone stops me. Its a nurse or something. A man asking me questions. Why is he doing this? Doesnʼt he know that I want to play ball. My friends are waiting for me.
Then suddenly, he letʼs me go. A dim light seemed to register in his head and his lips stopped moving. He stepped aside and I walked out the door. I saw the bus stop and wondered if that would help. I sat down on the bench, feeling a little weary on my feet. I wonder when the bus comes? It sounds fun to make an escape for somewhere new or old. It is then that I look at myself and see I am a senile old man, lost again in my memories. All the places I have been ... and now I live in and out of memories. The line that time runs down has now puddled in such a way that I live in the past and present and future all at once or with splashes here and there.
I donʼt even remember why I came out here.
The sunlight really is beautiful. When my children were young, we used to go for woodland walks on days like this. My wife loved to walk. We even had a place weʼd go that my daughter named the light place. It was a forest trail that dumped out into a hillside clearing and the light would run right down the hill and spill all over you in that valley as you emerged from the woods. What a lovely thing to walk such trails with your family ... even in hard times.
Why is life so hard?
I have seen hard times upon the faces of others and I have known hard times. I have caused hard times for others ... this is what is hard for me. To know that I have hurt other people, people that I love and care about. Sometimes there is no way that I know to make it right again. It remains broken and fragmented with no one to pick it up. The fragments must just travel on in different directions, hoping that others will find a way to sand down the rough edges where the break took place, hoping that others can sew and seam so they wonʼt continue to split and tear.
Is this bus coming? I donʼt care anymore. I am happy sitting in the sun, sitting in my time puddle ... this new, old place I now inhabit.
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