The Past is Present Tense...
He should have stayed on the bus. It was an 'Apocalypses Now' life lesson. Never get off the boat, never get off the fucking bus. But he had been unable to fall asleep again and his legs craved meaningful movement. So off the bus he went.
Lebanon wasn't a bad town. It was just a "too soon" town. Too familiar in slightly forgotten ways. He couldn't remember if it was six months ago or six years ago but he was pretty damn sure it didn't matter.
Once she had surprised him by meeting him here. Instead of jumping off the bus for a quick snack, a stretch of the legs and a bathroom break, he found her. There was an embrace, a walk about town and a bite to eat at a local diner before returning to her home to begin the standard seventy-two hour visit filled with desperation and sex.
His feet wandered aimlessly by the lakefront shops of the town. The streets were mostly deserted. It was the wrong season to feed off of the energies of others. It was late fall and the wind blew harshly off the water. It must have been spring or summer when she had met him here. It was such a lively place then, filled with a certain magical potential. Now it was just an empty shell. He struggles to both remember and forget.
He turned down an alley, then down a side street. And then... he found himself standing in front of the diner. He had known the way, but he hadn't. The diner appeared empty before him, but it wasn't. The emptiness and amnesia wasn't around him, it was inside of him. Inside of his heart, or soul, or whatever. It infected everything he looked at, everything he thought about. This idea, this plan, this scheme, crumbled before him. But he had no choice. He had gone too far and there was only one course of action left. So like a lamb heading to the slaughter he made his way back to the bus. Back to whatever fate awaited him when he arrived.
As he takes his seat on the bus he fails notices the disheveled man with one shoe sitting across from him.
Lebanon wasn't a bad town. It was just a "too soon" town. Too familiar in slightly forgotten ways. He couldn't remember if it was six months ago or six years ago but he was pretty damn sure it didn't matter.
Once she had surprised him by meeting him here. Instead of jumping off the bus for a quick snack, a stretch of the legs and a bathroom break, he found her. There was an embrace, a walk about town and a bite to eat at a local diner before returning to her home to begin the standard seventy-two hour visit filled with desperation and sex.
His feet wandered aimlessly by the lakefront shops of the town. The streets were mostly deserted. It was the wrong season to feed off of the energies of others. It was late fall and the wind blew harshly off the water. It must have been spring or summer when she had met him here. It was such a lively place then, filled with a certain magical potential. Now it was just an empty shell. He struggles to both remember and forget.
He turned down an alley, then down a side street. And then... he found himself standing in front of the diner. He had known the way, but he hadn't. The diner appeared empty before him, but it wasn't. The emptiness and amnesia wasn't around him, it was inside of him. Inside of his heart, or soul, or whatever. It infected everything he looked at, everything he thought about. This idea, this plan, this scheme, crumbled before him. But he had no choice. He had gone too far and there was only one course of action left. So like a lamb heading to the slaughter he made his way back to the bus. Back to whatever fate awaited him when he arrived.
As he takes his seat on the bus he fails notices the disheveled man with one shoe sitting across from him.