The Test
A story of rain, Public Transport and Strangers
I stared out from under the bus stop, through the curtain of hammering rain, at the distant lights of town. The guy next to me shifted on the bench, arms folded, fingers clawed into the arms of his denim jacket. I couldn’t blame him for being twitchy; all there was to rest on was one of those plastic seats they put in at a slant to stop people dossing on it. I didn’t want anything to do with him; he was that sort of twitchy white guy you know has a problem with everything. Leaning up in the corner of the shelter, I shut my eyes. If I’d read the timetable correctly, there should be another bus in ten minutes.
“Fucking piss-take.”
I stared ahead and murmured assent. Don’t talk to me, man, I thought, I just want to go home.
A car drove by, splashing a sheet of rainwater a little too close to us for comfort.
“Where’s the fuckin bus, huh?”
I turned my face a little, hoping that would be enough. Half a shrug and a, ‘Always the way, isn’t it?’ then eyes front again.
I cursed myself for forgetting my headphones. I‘d opened my earbud case to find the empty slots. If I still had them, I could have turned on a podcast, found a little escape; instead, I was stuck on that bench, in a box of greasy windows with someone who was probably going to start slagging off the next bus driver they saw.
“Hey, man, look!”
I turned, sensing motion from the corner of my eye. I saw Mr Denim jacket had gotten up and as close to the edge of the shelter as he dared. He was looking down the road, hands pressed against the perspex. I straightened up. There they were, headlights passing up the road, two beams highlighting the rain. I jumped up, grabbing my stuff.
He slapped his palm against the glass, smearing a sharpied tag, “This is it! This is fuckin it!”
The bus drove on, growing sharper moment by moment. Soon, I could see the lights on inside, the people lining the seats. There seemed to be a lot of them, though. Mr Denim ran out into the rain, waving his arms as the bus came on.
“Over here! Come on!”
The bus was almost at us then, but no brake lights came on, and no one was moving towards the door. I opened my mouth to say something, but Mr Denim was gone, yelling over the deluge.
“Come on! Stop the fiuckin’ bus!”
They slid past, and I caught a glimpse of the driver, shaking his head, tight-lipped and shrugging. The Denim guy kept after it, running down the pavement.
“You prick!”
He ran off, hurling insults after the taillights, even as they disappeared around a corner. I whipped a hand across my face; the way it was looking, I wasn’t getting home until after midnight. Mr Denim came back a few minutes later, hair dripping into his eyes, soaked to the bone. He huddled in the corner of the shelter, shivering and cursing. I kept my eyes ahead, acknowledging him like that would have made him angrier.
“Couldn’t he see we were standing here?” He spat into the silence.
“It was probably full up.”
“Bullshit. There was plenty of room!”
I didn’t have anything to add. It looked pretty full from what I saw. I slumped against the glass, shut my eyes and wished myself dry. I made a promise to myself, the first thing I did when I got home was put my pyjamas straight into the dryer. I heard the guy hissing under his breath, shifting this way and that. If he’d just calmed down, it wouldn’t have been so bad.
He might even have made it home.
We waited there for what felt like hours, the moon creeping across the night sky, shimmering through the rain. We slumped up once as a bus came down the road, only this time, they gave no sign they noticed us. My companion hurled an empty can at the retreating shape of the bus, but his heart wasn’t in it.
“Fucker!”
“It’s going to be like this all night.” My temper caught the best of me, and I called over to him. “If you really want to get out of here, you might need to get an Uber.”
His face twisted as he talked back out of the rain, a dark look beneath the streetlight.
“I don’t do Uber. I’m not getting in some randoms car.”
I shrugged, letting my arms slap back down to show him how little that was my problem.
Time slid by, and the guy was pacing up and down, muttering to himself. The rain refused to let up. I tried to leave my body, to picture being home and warm. The first I knew of the stranger, he was at my elbow. I peek up at him, a skinny man, his face obscured with a dripping hood.
He was dressed in an old raincoat and soaked to the bone. I saw chipped nails, fingerless gloves and in his hands, a wooden box. It was just a small thing with a varnished surface. I remembered seeing things like it in Hawkins Bizarre when I was young. He walked into the shelter, face turned down, all his attention directed to the box. I thought for a moment he might keep walking, but instead he turned to face into the road, waiting for the bus that would never come. The first guy turned at the end of his pacing and saw the newcomer, stopping dead in his tracks.
I held my breath. It was one of those crackling moments, the silence between the three of us, electric. I snapped out of my funk watching the pair of them. There was a curling in the first guy’s lip, a keen look in his eye that turned my stomach.
“Hey mate.” He said, sidling up to the newcomer, “What have you got there?”
But the new guy didn’t say anything; he just kept staring at the box. There was something about him that prickled at me, maybe the stillness.
“Hey, leave him alone. I don’t think he’s all there.”
All I got in response was a hand waved my way. I wasn’t going to get him off this new distraction.
“Come on, what’s in there? Coke? Dirty magazines?”
He stepped closer again, near enough to reach out and touch the guy, but still the ragged figure didn’t move. That’s when my fellow traveller began to get annoyed; he swept his hair out of his eyes and glowered out at the hooded figure.
“Listen mate, it’s a bit rude you’re ignoring me like this, I’m trying to have a conversation with you.”
A car slides by, splashing a wave of grey water over the two of them. That seemed to break the spell, and the first guy snatched the box.
“Fuck this! Let me see what you’ve got. I’ve had it up to here with this bullshit day!”
He shuffled away from us, hands scratching over the top of the box, searching for an opening.
That’s when I was up, making my way over to him, “Come on, give it back!”
He looked up at me again, just for a second, glaring with water-redened eyes.
“Fuck off! You’ve been absolutely no help, so sit back down before we have a problem!”
I thought about stopping him, honestly, I thought about belting him in the face, watching him reel back and bounce his head off the glass, but then the image continued, and I saw what could happen next. I knew that could be me going home without teeth. I thought of the bill, even with my overworked NHS dental surgery, and I slipped back into my seat, ears burning. He found something on the wood and pried up the top of the box. The newcomer wasn’t moving, still staring out into the road, only now his arms had dropped.
Another car rumbles by, churning up a wave of rainwater. Denims face curled up with confusion.
“What the-”
A piercing light burst from the darkness within the box, like someone firing a laser pointer. It blazed through his forehead with a sizzling pop, the smell of cooking meat filled the air, and the guy staggered backwards, slamming into the shelter wall. My heart thudded to a halt, and I drew my legs up, knees to my chest, watching on as he slid to his knees, box clattering from his hand.
Finally, the hooded figure began to move. I curled up even further, covering my face.
“I didn’t see anything! I’m sorry! I tried to stop him!”
I cowered against the dirty glass, hands digging into the skin of my face, like I could make up for any offence I’d given just by tearing at myself.
“Your ‘attempt’ was noted.”
The words came out, measured and off, like a scattering of pebbles. I pulled my hands away, watching as the homeless man stooped and picked up his box. When he turned to face me, his face had changed; the skull elongated and pale, set with saucer eyes of pure black.
“He was a poor specimen of your species. Had you been more courageous, you could have been acceptable.” It took a step towards me, “What sights we could have shown you, human. Instead, you are welcome to your life, such as it is.”
Frozen in place, I watched on, mouth agape as the creature pressed the lid of the box closed, some hidden latch clicking into place. A flash of blue light passed through the rain that sluiced over the shelter, and the face had returned to the vacant stare I had seen before. He smiled across at me.
“Any spare change, mate?”
I fumbled out a few quid, and he shuffled off into the rain. Moments later, a bus pulled up. I was lucky that someone got out in that lonely spot, perhaps for the car park nearby, otherwise I’d have been left there.
I cowered in my seat, the knowledge washing over me.
I had been judged and found wanting.