Author Information
Flash Fiction Story
She always smiled at Tom as she paid the bus ride. The well-dressed and beautiful woman was always in the same bus stop at 8:15 a.m., and Tom could see her always in the same spot from three blocks away. He didn’t know her name, nor did she knew about his, but somehow Tom felt relieved every time he went to pick her up.
He knew all the streets of the city as well as the palm of his hand and always followed the same route. Tom hated his monotonous job as a bus driver but he knew that with his level of studies he couldn’t get a better job than that. Besides, he needed the money.
Every day, he thought of himself as a loser. As a 37 year old man, he didn’t have a wife or girlfriend, nor any friend he could talk to. He felt lonely and was always envious of the people who had money, who had it easy since they were born. One of these people was the woman whom he observed everyday as she walked gallantly to take a seat. Tom thought how great it would be to be her husband. He wanted to talk to her, but couldn’t think that he was enough of a person to even have a conversation with her, so he conformed to just glancing at her once in a while.
One day, the woman was not standing in the same spot as usual. Tom realized about this two blocks away, but still decided to stop in the bus stop, even though there wasn’t anyone. He had hoped that she would show up a little late, but after half a minute he accelerated and went away. It was weird. She didn’t even showed the second day, nor the third.
A week passed and she was standing again in the bus stop at a Tuesday morning. She looked different. She didn’t have the same working dress she always used but rather some pants and a comfortable shirt. Her hair covered almost entirely the right part of her face. She paid without even glancing or smiling at Tom. He looked at her while she was taking a seat and in a second glance he could see that she had some injuries in her right cheek and a scar that went from her forehead to her right ear. Her injuries were noticeable to almost anyone, but nobody with the exception of him was worried about her.
The woman didn’t leave the bus at the usual stop but stayed for a long while inside it. She looked worried and desperate as if running away from something but Tom couldn’t tell what it was. He repeatedly glanced at her. They were on the third lap of the same route when a man entered the bus and caused a sudden reaction in her. He paid and Tom started accelerating. She felt uneasy as the man came close to her. The man looked as if he was searching for the woman all day long and grabbed her arm.
“No, please” yelled the woman, but the man started to pull her to the door.
“I told you not to go away Catherine” said the man with a strong and firm voice.
The woman was screaming and trying to fight back but nobody of the people in the bus stood up to help her.
“Somebody, please help her” shouted Tom, but everyone showed indifference towards the situation. They all thought that everyone should mind their own business.
The man and the woman were by the door when Tom decided to stand up to defend the woman, leaving the steering wheel alone.
“Leave her alone” Tom shouted as he got close to the man. The man quickly pulled out a knife out of his pocket and stabbed Tom.
“Nooooo” screamed the woman. It was all that Tom heard before the crash.
A world full of darkness surrounded Tom. He started seeing memories of his life. He wondered about his boring life and started thinking about what he could have changed to avoid ending alone.
A month later he woke up in the hospital. The rays of the sun penetrated through the window and descended upon his bed. He could clearly see outside the window. He turned his head and saw a balloon and a note in the table that said: “Thank you, Catherine”. He looked outside again and knew that everything was going to be different.
