psychic girl bus

2022-06-24

I’m on a school bus because we’re going on a field trip to the zoo, and it is very exciting. Everybody is animated and standing on their knees in their seats and talking loud and fast.

At the last minute, I realize I forgot my ticket! It’s back in my school locker. You’re definitely not allowed back inside the school once you’ve gotten on the bus, but I’ve got to go get that ticket. I don’t want to get all the way to the zoo and then not be able to get inside!

I run off the bus toward the school entrance. It’s all closed up and locked up, but I see a custodian exiting through one of the front doors. As he lets the door fall closed behind him, I grab the door at the last possible second before it latches shut and I slip in. He shouts and chases me through the halls. I tell him it’s okay, as I skid to a stop at my locker. I’m just getting my ticket from my locker! He scratches his head and says okay.

By the time I get back outside, ticket in hand, my bus has already pulled out and is gone. In fact all the buses are already gone, except for the psychic girls bus.

Now, I don’t know anybody who rides the psychic girls bus, and I don’t know anything about it. Maybe only psychic girls are allowed to ride it. Maybe it was made by psychic girls.

It’s the size and shape of a normal school bus, but painted in waves of purple, red, and yellow.

I run and jump on.

It is massive on the inside. At least twice as big as it should be in all dimensions, and there’s an upstairs and a downstairs. It is dimly lit, and very cozy, with cushions and pillows and blankets everywhere. Everything is cool blues and purples. It really makes you want to sit down and just chill out or go to sleep.

I poke around a little bit, and there’s nobody around. Everything seems to be made of pure magic and dream logic. The driver’s seat at the front is empty. The wheel turns itself, and the pedals operate themselves. Maybe because of the psychic girls.

Near the front of the bus, I see a large naked, bald-headed man sitting eyes closed in meditation. He opens one eye as I approach and then shuts it, seeming to not want to be disturbed. When I go to check on him later, after finding nobody else in the entire bus, he is gone, and I am alone on the psychic girl bus.

Time stretches out and starts to layer over itself. A daily routine is established. I take a new lover. She has dark hair, and is sullen, quiet, and withdrawn. Every day, we’re together until something happens to spark an awful but hazy memory inside of me. I try to chase the memory, but also shy away from it. And she grows tense, and then the day starts over again from the beginning, and it all happens over and over again.

After many days, I find the heart of the psychic girl bus. A small fairy who lives inside a small bubble on a kite. She looks at me scornfully. I remember catching the kite, and the fairy, and manipulating her into creating this time bubble for me as a way to atone, to punish myself, to learn to be a better person.

I had another lover before. She had light hair. And I was cruel to her.

My new dark haired lover is just a construction of the psychic girl bus, a way for me to forget, a way for me to practice being kind and fair.

Every time a hint of anger or impatience rises in the back of my mind, part of me remembers what I did and what I am doing, threatening to shatter the illusion. And the loop starts over.