At an undefined hour, on a nameless street, a featureless bus stopped by man of no importance.

“You here for the Nowhere Bus?” asked the driver.

The man shrugged. “I’ve got nowhere else to be.”

He paid the driver the standard fee: three teeth, one a child’s, one a man’s, and one straight from his mouth. A sharp rip, a short exchange, and the bus started.

He stepped through the door and down the rows of seats. He felt something underfoot: something crunchy, something slick, and something none of these things.

“Where does this go?” asked the man.

“Nowhere.”

“When do we get there?”

“Soon.”

“Who are you?”

“The driver.”

The man pondered his next question. “Who am I?”

“Won’t matter where we’re going.”

The man watched out the window as the land rolled by, dull and mundane. The plain plains of our plain plane of existence. He watched for some amount of time, but the view never changed in any meaningful way.

“Where are we know?”

“Somewhere.”

“And we won’t be soon?

“That’s the plan.”

That was a scary thought, but the man felt relieved as well. “Good.”

He sat for longer, listening to the quiet moans of the outside world and the still silence of the bus. Cutting, choking. He felt his eyes swell up until they pressed the sockets, his fingers curl, and his heart shake.

“Are we going to drive there?”

“Of course not,” said the driver. “The bus just helps you along.”

“Well how do we get nowhere?”

“Are you somewhere right now?

“Yes, I suppose.”

The driver struggled to find the right words. “Existence is being, non-existence isn’t. To not be, you must not exist.”

“But I do.”

“Then we’ll wait.”

And so they did.

The man listened to the others weep and gurgle as they waited too. They were waiting a long time. And shortly, so did he. He began to squelch too, loudly at first, then quietly. On the road of existence, he longed for oblivion, and despised the distance between. He hated being, though it was the only path to the void.

And so, down the road he went, waiting for the end of eternity and sweet finality. Maybe it’ll never come, but maybe it will, just a few miles forward.