Just after noon, we've come to our first stop. We're at a rest area, though I don't know where. I finally managed to catch some sleep first and woke up just as soon as I felt the bus come to a halt. I had a dream, though, and it's still so vivid in my mind. I was on the bus, which seemed exactly the same, but when I looked out the window I saw enormous things were the ordinary landscape should have been. They looked like machines--something you'd expect to find in some kind of industrial factory--machines the size of mountains. They loomed overhead as high as I could see with towers and spires that narrowed but stretched ever upward, blocking out the sun so that I could only see thin streams of light that slipped around their edges. The bus was driving in a straight line across flat land that had no other markings, and the road itself was cast in perpetual shadow. I don't even remember seeing anyone else around--no passengers, not even the driver.
The machines themselves were dark and dull. They had moving parts, like enormous cogs that turned, making the towers rotate, and occasionally, small, quick shapes moved from one machine to the next like birds flitting between power lines. I couldn't stop staring at them as they passed. I was fixed on them, like the needle of a compass pointing at true north.
There was one machine off in the distance that remained alongside the bus no matter how far and fast we drove, and it began to open. Light spilled out, and everything went white. There was some meaning inside--some purpose that was as plain as day to me in that dream. Then I woke up, and I feel like I've lost something important, like I've forgotten something that I needed to remember.
I decided to stretch my legs while we were at the stop. I used the bathroom, washed my face, and then headed to the vending area for a snack. The vending area was little more than a free-standing room outside the actual rest area, with nearly a dozen machines lining the walls. I had my pick of just about any kind of soft drink, coffee, or pre-packaged junk I could imagine. I settled on a bottle of water and a cheap pack of crackers sandwiched with peanut butter. I found a picnic table outside to sit at while I ate and looked at the world around me. The bus driver had muttered that we had twenty minutes when he opened the doors back, and there was still plenty of time to enjoy the fresh air before being stuck back in the bus on that wide seat with its torn, plastic cover.
Looking around, I can see a few of the other passengers milling around, shuffling like zombies toward the restrooms and the coffee machines. They are ordinary people, but they are the sort that either couldn't afford plane tickets or were afraid to fly or falsely felt that there was some sort of romanticism or nostalgia to be found in a bus trip across the country. There are other people here, too--families on trips, business travelers with suits and steaming cups of coffee, and an elderly couple standing outside an old Winnebago. No one seems to notice anyone else; they just go about their lives, interrupted only to eat and piss.
When I'm done, I climb back aboard the bus and wait for us to hit the road once again. I notice a few stragglers, other riders missing from their seats, so we wait even longer until I'm positive that our allowed twenty minutes had passed. Finally, a woman in her forties wearing a tan hunting jacket boards and sits up near the driver, who shakes his head as he pulls the door closed and shifts the bus into drive. We're off. I think I'll try to read some more now. I can probably finish Midnight's Children if I really try.
The machines themselves were dark and dull. They had moving parts, like enormous cogs that turned, making the towers rotate, and occasionally, small, quick shapes moved from one machine to the next like birds flitting between power lines. I couldn't stop staring at them as they passed. I was fixed on them, like the needle of a compass pointing at true north.
There was one machine off in the distance that remained alongside the bus no matter how far and fast we drove, and it began to open. Light spilled out, and everything went white. There was some meaning inside--some purpose that was as plain as day to me in that dream. Then I woke up, and I feel like I've lost something important, like I've forgotten something that I needed to remember.
I decided to stretch my legs while we were at the stop. I used the bathroom, washed my face, and then headed to the vending area for a snack. The vending area was little more than a free-standing room outside the actual rest area, with nearly a dozen machines lining the walls. I had my pick of just about any kind of soft drink, coffee, or pre-packaged junk I could imagine. I settled on a bottle of water and a cheap pack of crackers sandwiched with peanut butter. I found a picnic table outside to sit at while I ate and looked at the world around me. The bus driver had muttered that we had twenty minutes when he opened the doors back, and there was still plenty of time to enjoy the fresh air before being stuck back in the bus on that wide seat with its torn, plastic cover.
Looking around, I can see a few of the other passengers milling around, shuffling like zombies toward the restrooms and the coffee machines. They are ordinary people, but they are the sort that either couldn't afford plane tickets or were afraid to fly or falsely felt that there was some sort of romanticism or nostalgia to be found in a bus trip across the country. There are other people here, too--families on trips, business travelers with suits and steaming cups of coffee, and an elderly couple standing outside an old Winnebago. No one seems to notice anyone else; they just go about their lives, interrupted only to eat and piss.
When I'm done, I climb back aboard the bus and wait for us to hit the road once again. I notice a few stragglers, other riders missing from their seats, so we wait even longer until I'm positive that our allowed twenty minutes had passed. Finally, a woman in her forties wearing a tan hunting jacket boards and sits up near the driver, who shakes his head as he pulls the door closed and shifts the bus into drive. We're off. I think I'll try to read some more now. I can probably finish Midnight's Children if I really try.
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