The Hub

As the bus pulled away the spider walkers skittered after it for a pace but couldn't keep their balance, rolling back into the ditch from the speed. I yelled to the empty bus, mainly the driver, "what the hell were those things!?" No response. "Hello? I'm talking to you!" Still nothing. The bus continued on. I guess this is what it is like to be ignored in a vulnerable position. "Where the hell are we?" The lack of response, the silence grew louder overtaking my thoughts, my questions, my worries and concerns. It was oppressive and it was becoming stiflingly hot on the bus. I was in an oven. Hansel in the witches house. Gretel had either already been cooked or he had abandoned me long before this part. That was definitely more like it. "Can you turn the heat down?" I took off my sweater as I asked. Nothing but silence. The floor of the bus emanated translucent waves like hot asphalt. I stuck my face against the window where it was still cool. Bolstered by the thought that those creepy creatures were far behind us, I stuck my cheek right against the cool glass. Outside the tarmac seemed to seethe like a black lake at night in a low breeze, small waves crest. It feels like an optical illusion. The picture of the labyrinth where the stairs are in every direction and no matter which way you turn the picture it is facing up, or the vector that seems to spin as you stare at it. I had to close my eyes to stop the motion sickness. Copper flooded the back of my mouth, all I could taste was dirty pennies and my stomach churned a little more.

Space folded again, the bus was somewhere else.

"Can you please turn the heat off? I'm suffocating here..."

From the front of the bus comes the sound of static and machinery crushing gravel, "the heat is't onnnn." The n is drawn out in a murderous drawl. Thanks for responding, I guess. I try again to ask where we're going and I am answered with more insufferable silence and furnace blast of exhaust heat. I have to slump back in my seat, then lean forward and rest my elbows on my knees letting head hang down between. It clears my airways up a bit making it slightly easier to breathe in this sauna. The only thing hotter than this bus, has got to be hell. I didn't see it, but just then driver's papyrus face was reflected in the rearview mirror with a devilish sneer.

Space folds in on itself and I feel the bus lurch again. Bile rises up into my throat as my intestines twist with the motion. We were back in the city. But something was wrong. I mean, everything was wrong but now the inanimate reality that I had spent so much time enjoying was wrong too. It was way worse than the streetlights going dark. They were back on but the light they were emitting was sickly green.

You might be asking yourself, why the fuck isn' the trying to get off the bus? Well, on the bus all I have to worry about is heat. I don't know if you recall, but outside, that's where all those shadow people, strange towering husks, and now the fuckin streetlights are green! Who the hell would get off the bus?

"And did you miss me while you were looking for yourself out there?" The void. There is a void inside of me, I never realized. I get it now. He always used to say, "where's your fuckin head at? You're never here; even when you're here, your'e not here." Then he'd plead with me to show him I cared. Of course I cared. I wouldn't have been with him if I didn't. But, it was always so hard to just show it. To do something nice. I always thought, I'm here. I am doing this thing with you, I want to be here or I wouldn't. Isn' that enough? But there was a million things going on in my mind. I guess I did abandon him before he left me.

We were heading deeper into the city. The bus made a few more stops and I could see as we waited for passengers that were not coming that the houses were bent. They were folding in on themselves and constructed at extreme angles. All of the windows were mercurial and the paint was only partially finished and it looked like it was splattered on. Stranger than that is there were only two colours that the houses were painted; red or a disgusting shade of brown, sometimes a mix and on those ones it looked as if it was splattered on. It was like someone took a giant sized shotgun put it in their giant mouth and pulled the trigger while they sat leaning against the house. It was still dripping down the siding and brick on most. There were no lights that I could see in any of them and no people milling about near any of them either. This is the most alone I have actually ever felt.

As we approached the downtown and left the suburbs behind the buildings became more commercial and less residential. The windows were still mercurial, even on the office buildings that were all glass. They were all built into strange acuminate spires. Almost every single one of them. The closer we got to the heart of the city the taller and blacker they became. I watched as we passed shops with overdone neon lighting. At first I wasn't paying attention but when we passed a four story building with a moving neon sign that depicted an angry woman baring fangs stabbing a man attempting to crawl away in the back, a Kentucky - no Gluttony - Kentucky Fried Liver. I couldn't tell if the sign was a palimpsest; things overlapping, or switching back and forth. I couldn't help but pay attention. Where the hell am I? Now I am seriously worried. Listen, I was before but that sign added to the pile of weird tonight and became the last straw. I really felt like I was losing my mind. I know otherwise now. But in that moment, it couldn't all have been a dream, could it? I had no idea. It didn't even make grammatical sense.

We passed another place, a bank I think. It looked like a Toronto Dominion bank, TD. Only it was distorted. It was the same green block and inside it the T was lower case, almost like a cross and had a curved tail; the D was runic. It looked like a diamond with the lines crossing through one another at the top and bottom. There was what one can only assume was a pizza place advertising the deep dish as the pit. It was swarming with flies. The cloud of flies was so thick you could barely read the sign. We passed a building that stood out as different than the rest because it was bone white. Aside from that it was the only one that had regular windows and doors. It seemed so out of place. Above the door was a familiar golden earth around a capital T etched into it. Man, the guy who owns that really does have an ego eh? Literally thinks he's carving his initial into the world. Maybe it isn't so out of place.

Another lurch and the LED signalling the stop names changed. It was the first time that it had done so since I got on the bus. It read, The Terminal. We were driving through some sort of riot. Those broken charcoal figures were everywhere in swarms. The bus ran through them like they weren't there at all. Geysers of blood sprayed all over the front windscreen. The wipers came on and each time they cleared the windshield there were limbs bent in horrible directions, people - are they people? - flailing in every direction. The bus ran over them and I had to struggle to stay in the seat as we bumped once as the front wheels crushed bodies and the back. The ones that ran like spiders were skittering out of the way, they were crawling up and down walls, in and out of broken windows while others were breaking the windows and looting whatever was inside. There were fires everywhere. The smell of burning tar, wood, and flesh was pungent. It definitely got hotter on the bus. I had to use the bottom of my shirt to wipe the sweat off my face.

Finally up ahead I could see the The Terminal. There were other buses there. They all looked charred as they pulled in and out. Some were parked, their driver's next to them smoking and watching the chaos and utter mayhem all around. The building was a tarnished silver wheel. The centre was a roundish oblong hub with five ventricles protruding out like giant horns rising high into the sky. There were spots of rust and tarnish that almost looked like some sort of algae or fungus covering it. It had lost all of its lustre long ago. We were on a road that was directed directly toward one horn. There were five others. The whole city revolved around this place. Only five roads in and only five roads out. What the fuck? Sorry, I forget that I am telling the story and not still in it. Although, I suppose I am still in it, since it is about me. If he was here, he'd probably get snarky and make some joke like, "everything's always about you..." Asshole. Sometimes he could be such an asshole.

The bus pulled into The Terminal at its designated spot. The doors opened and the smell got worse. The driver stood up, turned toward me, opened her mouth releasing a noise that was static and grinding gravel as she said, "Stay put. Not yur stop." She got off the bus and joined another driver. Even though they spoke and there was utter anarchy in every direction the silence was oppressive.