This story is about a bus journey turned treasure hunt.

God, I hate buses. I suffer from claustrophobia so it’s not the most ideal place to be. They always have that hint of underlying flatulence lingering in the air and sticking to every available surface, and you get the strangest characters on them, always at the same time as you’re on there. I tell myself it’s worth it for her. May 4^th is coming up so no doubt my sister will be appalled if I don’t get her anything shiny for her birthday. She does deserve it after all; she basically raised me.

The bus rattles down the narrow streets of London, stopping every 5 minutes at each stop. I remember how many stops it takes to get to the shopping centre. 27, and we just passed 25, so I clutch my bag ready to get off. As I stand up to get off, I see the face of a man wearing a huge black trenchcoat and skinny trousers in the window beside me. Normally, I would take no notice of this, but this time it was different. It felt like he was trying to say something to me through the smoky, scratched bus window. I exit the bus hastily, narrowly escaping the smell of piss from going further into my nose. I look in the direction in which the bus came from, to see if I could see the man. The winding streets and alleyways of London have swallowed him up by now.

~

Isn’t it weird when you see people years after you last talked to them? It constantly feels strange to me that time is constantly running for everyone and not just you, even though you don’t see it. You expect them to be the exact same, but of course they won’t be because neither are you. Anyways, my old secondary school bully was my bus driver this morning, I don’t think he realised it was me, probably since I have changed hairstyles and hair colours countless times since. I was going back into the shopping centre, this time for a new video game I saw advertised on the telly. It looks shit but I am so bored lately anything is worth trying. I unconsciously start counting the bus stops as I pass them, purely out of habit. The streets were particularly busy but at least I wasn’t driving, God knows I suffer from the most irrational road rage. Passing stop 25 I reach for my bag, preparing to stand up. I hear tires screech and I feel the bus jolt sideways My whole-body flies forward, smacking into the seat in front of me. My stomach retracts in agony and I can’t breathe. I look around the bus to see the other passengers in a similar state; one woman is bleeding. I stand up and move to the front part of the bus.

The bus driver is slumped over the wheel, if he’s unconscious or not, I don’t know. I look through the front window to see we have collided with a white ford transit. I always thought bus drivers drove like an F1 driver, like they’re constantly in a rush and just want their shift to be over. However, this accident wasn’t because of speeding, I see the body of a man on the zebra crossing. I look at his clothes, realising who this man is. The black trenchcoat is drenched in blood. I get closer to the front of the bus and see the man’s cranium is scattered along the road, its place replaced by an ochre-coloured, holed rock. Its smoking hot.