For All You Winter Travelers

Apologies, I’ve been neglecting my blog in favor of far-flung voyages (as if anybody actually reads this blog anyway!).

But here’s a little snippet of an extremely-satisfying -to-compose story… m.snowe has found that perhaps better than any corporal reality, fictional punishment is quite enough when exploring very personal injustices. Hope you enjoy, and please do let m.snowe know if she should compose further hellish levels.

BUSFERNO…The stress -reducing imaginings of a withering traveler.

While sitting on the MEGAbus one cold November evening along the Hudson River, I remember falling asleep, my head stuck in the vice-like crack between my headrest and the window, and then I woke up with a jolt…I think…

…

To my surprise, a rather portly man silently tapped me on my shoulder to wake me. The bus, it appeared, had been emptied; all the other passengers were gone. The most peculiar glare was coming from the windows, as if light was filtering through a deep fog against the glass. The rotund gentlemen with a blue bowler cap beckoned me forward silently with his index finger, and let himself out the bus door, which opened as he approached it as if by a motion sensor, without any levers pulled or buttons pressed.

I decided to follow him. At once, as I stepped off the increasingly narrow and angled flight of stairs, I was thrust into a world that looked nothing like the boring suburban hometown that was my bus’s destination. The first thing I noticed was the ground (if you could really call it that). It was littered with all manner of garbage in such a way that you couldn’t decipher the bottom–gum wrappers, dirty clothes, used condoms, half-eaten sandwiches, sticky old already-been-chewed gum, snotty hankies, banana peels, all manner of rotting food–I only mention the most inoffensive objects to you now, to spare you the gruesome scene. It was worse than Brighton Beach the morning after a college all-night bonfire party. By no means did I want to stay in this neighborhood. It expanded out as far as the eye could see, and the sound of crunching and crumpling and grunting got louder as I carefully maneuvered through the filth.

The portly gentlemen seemed to want me to follow him, and in the distance, I could see what looked like another bus, parked and ready. Perhaps my way out of this horrid place. Halfway there, I noticed that some of the garbage was moving.

In fact, it was moaning. Upon closer inspection, I noticed that the upright bags of Sunchips–those eco-friendly, extra-noisy crinkly bags–were spinning around. I leaned down to look closer at one of the slowly oscillating bags–indeed, amongst the logos and pictures of chips, was a tiny set of eyes, a larger nose, and at the bottom—a gaping human mouth. When the eyes focused on me, I realized, it was a person, buried in the trash-laden ground up to their neck, head glued tightly inside a potato chip bag, as if it were a mask. To say the least, from what I could make out, this guy looked incredibly stressed out. “Nom, nom, nom! Help me eat out of this!” he cried, mouth full, in between huge chomps of brownish black apple cores, used chewing gum, and moldy, half-eaten sushi. “Imost aate talll!!!!” was his cry of increasing urgency. But it seemed no matter how much he consumed, the pile of putrid refuse just refilled itself and tumbled into his screaming and chewing mouth. Only after his cries became piercing did I run away, and while running, remember that he looked strikingly similar to the man I sat across from on my bus–the one who was constantly eating with his mouth open and smacking for all to hear.