I think spirits are searching for me or my soul, I can’t tell which yet.

I hear strange voices all the time, sounds from a different time and place. The wind opens doors I have yet to walk through and the sun never seems to shine directly on me. The night has become my lone friend, my only solace from the images that race through my thought like sprinters on speed.

I end up, awakening as if from a dream, in strange places with little recollection as to how I got there. Maybe that explains why I’m in a bus depot parking lot at 3 in the morning.

Either that or the shipment, whichever comes first.

I started these pickups a couple of months ago. It was late and I guess I ended up in the park. I started at a function, some party with people I didn’t know. It was late and instead of sticking around for no reason, I just started walking. Who knows for how long.

I ended up on a park bench with two packs of gum and some foreign substances in my pocket. Then he approached.

”Is this seat taken?”

”No.”

”Looks like you need…something?”

”Really?”

”Yeah, why don’t you and I take a walk. I think we have a lot to discuss.”

 

How we got from point A to point B, I have no clue. But it didn’t seem bad at the time, idea wise. I mean, I had delivered pizzas before. This was similar. Except all the pickups were at night, which was fine cuz I was getting less and less sleep.

The requests seemed strange to my roommates, my co-workers and those that intersected with my world. Put on black boots and pick up a box at the docks. Wear a white hat when you go to the airport. And always smoke Newports when you’re at the bus depot. I didn’t smoke, but I picked up the habit fast…

Waiting for the unknown is easier then it sounds, so long as you don’t think about it. I rarely did. The money I was making with this side hustle could have put my kid through prep school and college, but I wasn’t married.

The job was simple and I didn’t do much of anything. I would wait, like tonight, in the parking lot, waiting for the last bus in town. He was always the last person off the bus, wearing a dark trench coat. I would open the trunk and wait for directions. He would place whatever in the car, hand me some paper and walk away.

He never spoke and it was never the same guy. I know only it wasn’t the same guy because the build would differ occasionally.

Drive to the locale and flash my light. Same drill at the other end. Open the trunk and once I hear it close, drive away. There was always an envelope left inside…

Maybe if I had shared any of this, it wouldn’t have reached this point. Only I was slowly removing myself from the social circles I ran in. I would forget dates, numbers, appointments, people’s names.

After a couple of months, I quit my day job. Too many looks when I would come in bleary eyed. It didn’t affect my work, but my dress and demeanor was “detrimental to the work environment”. At least that’s what the memo said. I burned it on my desk and walked out. I didn’t need that kind of demeanor in my life…

I moved out of my place a couple of weeks later. My roommates decided to find a new place and left me out. That was fine, I was making enough to pay for the whole place by myself, although after they left I remained in my room. One would think a five-bedroom three story house could get lonely when living in it by yourself, but I learned to manage.

Actually, I don’t remember entering any of the rooms before the house burned down. Then I had to travel with the insurance agent through every inch of the place. I never even noticed that my roommates left all their stuff…

I became good friends with the sleepwalkers and cabbies prowling the streets after hours, looking for that last fare. When I would pull up and step outside to smoke a Newport, they always had a light.

Our conversations didn’t go much farther than that, But it didn’t have a need to go any further. They had a job to do, just like me. I wouldn’t want to ruin their livelihood with a boring ancedote about my sister and her pet snake. I’m sure they felt the same way.

There was one cabbie, however, who irked me just the wrong way. I’m a creature of habit and I had a certain spot I would park in. He thought it would be funny to take my spot.

He laughed when I pulled up next to him with a leer on my face. It was my spot, all the cabbies knew it. Maybe he thought he was being friendly; in a high school bully picks on the new guy kind of thing. I never understood that high school mentality. Just wasn’t logical in our adult world of university and technical schools.

I was there the night his car exploded. The cops said there was a gas leak that leaped into his engine when he started the car or something. I never was big into cars…

 

”Hello?…Is somebody there?”

I was waiting for the last bus in, which was always late on Fridays and I heard it again.

”Hello?”

The lot was empty. Most of the cabbies were at the airport. The others were downtown…

”What? I know…what can I say?”

The sky was a deep purple. Not that sweet sunset purple, but an after the storm calm purple. There was very little wind.

”Why? What have I done? I’ve done nothing, exactly?”

”All I did was what was asked of me, that’s all.”

”Why would I ask questions, why should I care?”

”The, the…but that’s not right!”

The silence at night can become deafening if you listen carefully…

“I will not drive away. No! You can’t make me. I need this!”

”That’s not…well, but that’s not…why! Why now? Why are you doing this? TELL ME!!!”

 

”Are you okay, son?”

The security guard, he must have…

”You heard the voices, right?”

”What voices? I heard your voice…”

”You didn’t, but the voices. Wait…”

”What?”

”There. You didn’t just hear that?”

”I didn’t hear a thing. I think you need a rest.”

 

My only rest would come in a pine box, and that was still years away…