I rode the bus today. I rode the bus, and not for the usual reason I ride the bus. Not another day of aimlessly crisscrossing the city, quietly searching for for new dead ends. Not another day that goes unremembered except in a growing familiarity with strangers’ faces. Do they blend together, or have I really seen them all now? Have I avoided the gaze of every lonely pair of eyes in this city? Well, at least those attached to bodies that ride the bus in the middle of the day. Eyes that watch me burn an hour crossing from the ocean to the bay, and follow me with equal disinterest back to the ocean.

My roommate thinks I have a job. This is what I want him to think. I need him to see me tired after a long day of going everywhere but doing nothing, also known as “fuck-all.” Otherwise he will “help” me find a job, which would introduce the risk of me actually having one. It’s not a money thing — the inheritance has taken care of that — he just can’t understand how a person could spend a day unoccupied. Even on weekend afternoons he will stop outside my bedroom door, listening, checking whether I have gotten out of bed. I understand why he needs a constant stream of scheduled activities: he’s an unintelligent, uncreative, and generally naive person. I’m just frustrated that he can’t understand how I am different. The only activity I have planned is another day of scanning faces on public transport, hoping to find a man I can hire to break into our apartment and shoot us both while we sleep.

But not today. No, today I rode the bus with a purpose. I wasn’t sure what it was, but I knew I had to cross the city and stare out across the bay for three hours. Then I would figure out what my purpose was. As it turns out, my purpose is “fuck-all.” The bay was foggy and I could barely see the water under the pier. I gazed into the cold grey mass for a brief forty-five minutes before I returned to the transit station, pulled a glass bottle out of a recycling bin, smashed it against the sidewalk, screamed, and hopped on the next bus. My seat was still warm from a previous butt.

I was deflated. My determination had left me. Even the itch of glass dust on my fingers couldn’t excite me. I rubbed a bit into my eyes and saw stars. As my vision cleared I noticed a girl had sat down beside me. She was deeply focused on a text conversation. Her long hair blocked her peripheral vision, her narrow fingers barely obscured the screen at all. She was perfect. My peeping senses tingled, eyes and ears ready to devour another person’s private life.

What was her relationship with the man whose name and picture headlined her screen? Mr. Jeff Evans appeared to be about her age — rather young, really. Were they… sexual partners? Was I about to peer through the curtains into their text-based bedroom? Or, even better, would I get to watch them fight? Perhaps she would dump him before my eyes. Then I could get off at the same stop as her. Follow her home, tastefully. Come back tomorrow and wait at the cafe across the street. Return the next day at exactly the right time to buy her a cappuccino. Start some light conversation, making sure I mention all the things she loves that Jeff never cared about. She’ll ask for my number, and we’ll go to the beach every day this summer. We’ll make love on a hot night and at the peak of our physical connection I’ll cry and she’ll realize she doesn’t know me at all and everything she knew about me was just an elaborate lie meant to draw her into my web. I just keep crying until she is blind with rage and cannot resist the urge to stab me to death with the fountain pen I keep on my nightstand. My roommate helps her bury my body.

I had drifted off, fantasizing about what her conversation with Jeff could be like. Their reality bored me: a friendship constructed from a mindless exchange of emoji and TV references I didn’t get. Disappointing, yes, but I was not ready to give up hope: she was young, but her cheeks bore imperceptible wrinkles and scars. These were the ditches between picturesque landscapes. Woodland creatures frolicked amidst the peach-fuzz meadows, making nests in her eyeshadow. They would breed in the springtime, but they would crawl to the scars when the rains came. There they would die, surrendering themselves to decay. I shouldn’t mention it, but her blackheads were inexplicably arousing.

There I went, thinking again. Fortunately my reverie had kept me focused on the girl, so I yanked back to reality when her phone buzzed with a message from a different friend: Jill Layton. My lady immediately abandoned Jeff as a flurry of messages from Jill arrived:

Sammy! I’ve finally found it!

We can finally leave this city!

You thought it was money, but I KNEW that didn’t matter.

The rich still live here. Everyone is trapped.

It looked like Sammy (Samantha?) had to reread this a few times. So did I. Of course, I always knew we were trapped. But I didn’t know anyone else knew. Is this why no one listens when I scream? Do they already know? Sammy began to type a response, but another stream of messages arrived:

You’re coming home now? Don’t. Keep going.

Meet me at the beach.

We’re escaping! TRUST ME.

I love you.

Sammy stared at her phone for a minute, then turned it off and stuck it in her backpack. I She hung her head in her hands and I resisted the urge to put an arm around her. It must be difficult to love a crazy person, I thought. I was glad this was one problem I had never experienced. I was also glad to know that Sammy and I were riding the bus to the end of the line together.

The air was sandy, the ground was salty; I pretended to examine the map of bus routes as Sammy crossed the highway. There was nobody on the boardwalk. I kept a healthy distance and watched two women meet where the sand met the ocean. They held hands and spoke for a while.

The tide began to rise, lapping against their ankles, but they did not seem to mind the cold, wet intrusion.

The sun sank towards the horizon. I saw them embrace, letting the waves rise past their waists.

The sun set, but the water rose. Waves crashed over the two lovers, now just a silhouette of two heads locking eyes. I strained my eyes to distinguish them from the dark shapes that formed in the water.

It got dark. Which disappeared first: the sun, the ocean, the sand, or the lovers? Only I was left at the edge of oblivion. Just me and the boardwalk, dim lights giving birth to the city behind us.

I rooted around in a trashcan before walking home to the park. A cold fog had landed, but it was warm within the bushes. I set out the half-bag of potato chips I had scrounged and unrolled my sleeping bag. Before long my roommate scurried home, bringing a few friends with him. They looked tired — dark circles around their eyes. Help yourself, I told them. No one could accuse me of being unproductive today. I rode the bus today, and not for the usual reason I ride the bus.