ONCE UPON A TIME...

Once upon a time… a fairly grotesque and unusual time, there was a bus stop. It stood on the corner of 5th and 6th street, which you wouldn’t think could serve as a practical place for a bus stop as the waiting area wasn’t exactly like your typical station, but shaped by the line of the corner.

All the vehicles that stopped there could bend in the most unimaginable ways so that the parts could always fit exactly with the shape of the corner - like a perfectly executed Tetris sequence. What was even more peculiar about this location is that the passengers never conversed with each other by actual spoken word, but instead used a book to write down their thoughts. And well, sometimes, if someone had to wait more than humanly possible in the 21th century (so, like 2 minutes), they even reviewed some previous creations and left witty remarks and shameful comments under the entries. Thousands of precious, mind-numbing thoughts, all left there, all unable to escape from the book. But what those thoughts didn’t know is that the book was a prisoner too: he had been chained to the bus stop’s smudged glass wall since his birth. He knew all the frequent visitors by now, not in terms of faces and fashion statements, but he memorized their favorite expressions, studied the way they quiver and shiver when the temperature drops, and listened to their troubles shared on his pages.

However, after a while, the book started getting weary about the situation; he was annoyed by the recent entries as instead of the honest ramblings, people used him for merely self-promotion and vulgar clichés coming from taxpayers waiting for a bus they don’t have a ticket for. So the novel pondered for a few days, contemplated the state of affairs, then broke loose from his chain with all the power he possessed and finally set himself free. He decided to cross the street he’d been gazing at for years; he waited for the green light then began walking up on 5th. Everyone stared at him, but no one said a word – around this area, folks aren’t stunned by anything, especially not if that thing is an almost completely filled-out book wandering the streets. Buses arrived, took the passengers, and our hero joyfully continued his walk on this bright summer afternoon. He glanced into shop windows, lingered in front of the florist, some saw him even go into a bookstore, but they might have confused him with another loose novel. The last time anyone’s ever seen him was when he picked up a heap of rum at a liquor store and disappeared into the city. Some say he is still roaming the streets of this imagined town, but I think he found his peace on top of the nearby hill - inspecting the place from afar and reading the stories written inside of him.

So why am I sharing this story? No straightforward intention. Maybe I just fancy thinking I am even just a tiny bit like the book; collecting stories that people normally wouldn’t share with anyone, then setting free of my chains and peacefully wandering around.