Ghosted By The Bus
I'm about to tell you a horror story, one where the terrors are neither ghosts nor monsters, but something far worse: public transit. These buses don't run on a schedule. You either get lucky and get picked up, or you simply get left stranded forever. It's even worse when you have zero other options and are trapped relying on a single route. It's worse still when you're waiting in a spot with virtually no shade from the relentless sun. And it reaches peak nightmare when you're slowly melting in 34-degree heat.
Thirty minutes have passed, but you stay hopeful. Thirty minutes isn't a lot of time in a city with abysmal transit, so you convince yourself to hold the line. You reason that leaving now would mean wasting half an hour of suffering for nothing, making the wait a gamble you simply cannot afford to lose.
To pass the time, you put on your headphones, turn up the music, and drift off into a daydream. You wait patiently at the stop, watching like a ghost as other passengers get rescued by their respective buses. Route after route pulls up, scoops up its lucky victims, and disappears into the distance. But there is no sign of your route. It's as if your specific bus number was scrubbed from reality, leaving you to rot on the pavement.
Fifty minutes in, and your shirt is completely soaked in sweat beneath your backpack. At this point, you start making aggressive mental life plans, because almost an hour has gone by and this suffering cannot be in vain. There has to be a purpose. You force yourself into a wave of sudden, desperate self-motivation: You're going to get a better job. You're going to study, climb the corporate ladder, and finally buy a car. Yes. A car. Sure, you'll still be trapped in the city's hellish traffic, but at least you'll be trapped in air-conditioned comfort, not melting on a curb.
You visualize the happy ending: a nice house, a solid career, getting married. You convince yourself that this agonizing wait is actually a character-building arc, and that one day you'll look back at this exact bus stop and smile at how far you've come.
An hour and a half. You’re no longer daydreaming about the future. Now, your mind drags you into the past. You begin picking through every horrific life choice that led you to this exact slab of burning concrete. You think about accepting that soul-crushing job where nobody values you. You think about dropping out of college, realizing too late that becoming an accountant or an architect was a brilliant idea, and that chasing the dream of being a rockstar was pure delusion. Every cringe moment, every absurd phrase you ever uttered, suddenly resurfaces to mock you.
Most of all, you curse the monumental mistake of spending ninety minutes waiting for this specific bus. You could have taken a completely different route, transferred twice, and been home by now.
Now, you are the last soul remaining at the stop. You can feel the eyes of passersby, sensing their silent laughter at your pathetic, delusional hope. But at this point, it’s personal. It’s a blood feud between you and that bus, you and this entire godforsaken transit system. You refuse to give them the satisfaction of watching you break. You will stand your ground. You will stay right here, rotting in the sun, until that bus arrives or death claims you first.
Two hours. Two whole hours, and you finally admit defeat. You surrender. Two precious hours of your life gone, and you're still nowhere near home, on a route that takes another two agonizing hours just to reach your stop. The anger evaporates, leaving behind a cold, hollow sadness. You feel betrayed by your own foolish optimism. You actually convinced yourself that today would be different, that this time the bus would appear like a savior and carry you happily toward home. Now, there is only empty concrete. Not a single mechanical soul in sight.
You open Uber, resigned to burning the two hundred Mexican pesos it costs to get home, literally the last cash you have left for the week, just to put an end to the torture. You view it as a mercy payment. You recall the legend of Icarus, falling from the sky after flying too close to the sun, except your wings didn't melt, your dignity did. You place the order and wait.
A kind gentleman pulls up. You slide into the back, click your seatbelt, and sink into the plush seat. Crisp, ice-cold air conditioning washes over your skin. Finally. You are beaten, penniless, and humbled, but the suffering is over.
Then, as you gaze out the window, you see it. A single bus lurches past. It's the bastard. The exact one you waited two hours for. It rattles by like a runaway train, and you genuinely don't know whether it's real or a stress-induced hallucination. You lean back into the cold leather and make a silent promise: this war is far from over.