the last bus i ride before i go

During my last year of high school, around late October, my Modern Literature teacher egged on me to enter a writing contest. I ended up writing four short stories but two were turned into poems, while the last two never saw the light of day. This is one of the stories I never thought I'd have to read again until I saw it in my little folder. It's nothing special and it's not my best work, but I thought it encompassed the feeling of being a stranger to yourself very well. So, here's an unedited piece of an existential crisis :D

the last bus i ride before i go by a.b.

When exactly did I begin to rot? Was it when I dragged my feet through the asphalt distractedly, watching the sunset for what must be the millionth time? (Being human, in and of itself, is lonely. And if there is a god, they don’t know why it’s so hard to be humanーNo other creature would look up at the sky in ununderstandable grief for the state of being.)

“I really don’t know how to fold paper boats,” I had said as I turned my eyes to you.

My gaze that had been trained towards the empty, colorless sky must have been nothing compared to yours. At what point in our friendship did I begin to dislike those eyes of yours, that fixed and unmoving stare on your flashcardsーjust when exactly did we stop looking each other in the eye?

“Hm… Something like that, isn’t it quite easy?” You had replied after a second, your eyes still steadily perusing the words I can barely read.

“Well, yeah, I guess. Doesn’t change the fact that I can’t do it though, right?” I laughed dryly, making an absent gesture of my hand; these hands that couldn’t even grasp the meaning of my words.

“What about a paper crane then?”

“The most I can probably do is a paper airplane,” I replied curtly, realizing that there’s a space between us that not even a thousand paper cranes can fill.

I think back to how difficult it was for me to even learn how to fold such a thing. My fingers would stagger through the steps and pinch the paper where I wasn’t supposed to. I'd grip the ends of the fold and watch as I curl them crisp, the spare note I could have used to sketch imperfect circles, lifeless eyes, and faceless models turned to waste as I crumpled the paper in my fist.

And when I open it up again, my fingers crease an apology to the corners of the sheet as I bud it all loose. There goes the ghost marks of my grotesque folds, a seeming stretch that spreads through. I try to slim the paper back down against a hard surface, palm pressed like iron, trying to erase these ghost marks and almost ghost scars, the folds I made to the note were a sacrifice of creases. A sacrifice that I have convinced myself to be meaningless.

“Well, don’t worry, it’s not like you need to be an expert in folding paper to get through life. It’s just a lil’ party trick at most,” You said again, shrugging your weightless shoulders but not even sparing me your own weighted gaze. Your words, despite not being my own, have twisted my tongue and broken my bones. Look at me, I nearly said.

“What do you know?”

A distinct shade of red, a color that’s different from the setting sun, made me look down at my loafers. I remember the heat that rose up to my cheeks was from nothing else but shame. If you had turned to look at me, I wasn’t sure; I couldn’t be brave enough to look. How embarrassing.

That day, I remember our dragging footsteps and our stretched shadows across the pavement being all for naught. Now, I sit on the bus with my chin resting on my palm as my drowsy thoughts struggle to fill in the empty seat behind meーIs this, finally, my life? Do I hold it with both hands?

I am here, and I exist, and I can feel the pads of my fingertips touch my skin. I, at this very moment, am real. All of a sudden, I felt estranged from my own existence. Staring absently at the hanging handles of the bus, I took a deep breath and listened to the old brag of my heart. It goes badum, badum, badum. Like a steady timpani in an orchestra amidst the winds and strings. Where am I headed?

I am lost here in the ‘somewhere’ of this bright, starless cityscape. This body that carries me hunches forward and curls onto itself, its nails digging deep into its skin as if to make a home inside my rotting flesh. “Hey, excuse me,” The bus driver scrutinized me from the rear-view mirror, the vehicle halting in front of a pedestrian crossing as the stoplight blared red, “You alright there?”

Oh, he can see me. I can feel tears rising up in my throat. What is this? I'm not sure if it's being asked to answer such a question, or the thought of being under the scrutiny of this bus driver; still, I choke at the question as his eyes bore into me, it takes me a second to beg in my head for him to look away and another second to answer.

“I’m alright.” I’m not, I don’t know where this bus is heading, and I don’t know if this skeleton I walk in is mine at all. I feel as if my insides are on the brink of completely folding in on themselves. I feel like I'm losing grip on the things that make me who I am. Nothing feels quite real, not even this ache that knocks on the back of my throat.

I don’t understand, I catch myself thinking aloud that I could have sworn I had said it.

My spine unwinds on itself and I fall back to my seat. The smile I had stretched to my lips that barely feels tethered to my skin makes my skin crawl. My eyes squint at the window and all I could see my body for is a dirty, transparent reflection. There’s a certain feeling that overcomes your entire being when you find your own reflection unfamiliar; a sort of all-consuming melancholy that burrows itself in your mind and allows little room for hope of ever finding your former self again. It's a funny thing, how reflections change. How, at some point in time, I knew myself completely. And yet I’ve managed to morph into something barely resembling what I once claimed as “me” without notice.

(I knew myself, once.)