In Wyatt, Missouri, there’s one bus stop. The bus stop expects one bus that has one route. The route had one stop, a hospital, which was within walking distance from the bus stop, making it quite useless.
The bus stop was rather basic. It had two metal poles on either end that held up a lame plastic covering. There was only one seat, just big enough to fit a young lady like myself. I liked the bus stop since no one ever came, and secluded spots were great for thinking.
I had always been alone at this bus stop until one foggy day in September. I had been trying to get some quick thinking in before my pregnant sister and her husband came to visit.
The disturber of my peace was a young man my age. He was lengthy, handsome, and seemed annoying. He, noticing there was another person at this nearly useless bus stop, tried making small talk.
In response, I glared at him intensely. I don’t like strangers. I don’t like people in general, but especially people I don’t know. I like knowing things. When I don’t, I feel icky.
The young man, seeing my glare, turned to his phone. Music blasted from the small, caseless thing. I was about to tell him to lower the volume when he dropped it. I felt bad for the stranger at first. However, once I realized the noise had stopped, it made me smile rather brightly.
The man had crouched down to clean up the parts. He did it quite rhythmically. Piece by piece, not missing a beat. Since I had nothing better to do with my solitary bliss broken, I watched him clean.
“Is that your broken phone?” a tall young woman with sharp glasses and a friendly expression sneaked up on us through the fog. She looked like a librarian, and her voice was confident yet sweet. The man, surprised by her presence, dropped his phone once more. Two random people at my bus stop; it made my slight icky feeling turn to a strong distaste.
The man stood up to answer her, leaving his shards on the ground, “Yes, it’s mine, but I’ll survive.” His voice contrasted with the woman’s; it was soft and dense.
“You think that now,” she said, “but phones are quite the necessity nowadays.”
“Depends on how you’d define a necessity, I suppose,” said the man.
“Good point,” She said, her voice loud and strong. “How necessary is the word necessity anyway?” the lady went on, “I’ve always wondered that.”
The man’s face reflected an expression of realization.
“Do you know a Thomas Sterling?” he asked the lady.
“I do! No wonder you looked so familiar! Are you my cousin Thomas?”
“I think so. Darling Sterling, my favorite cousin! I barely recognized you,” Thomas extended his arms for a hug, but Eliza stepped back suddenly, shaking her head, with an oddly sly expression.
“My name’s Eliza Lozanto, not Darling.”
Eliza and Thomas; I noted their names. My sister had asked me to find good ones for her baby; however, I wasn’t so sure I’d want a nephew named after obnoxious people at the bus stop.
“I suppose we don’t know each other then,” Thomas sighed, “Just when you asked about the necessity of the word necessity, you sounded exactly like my cousin,”
“Now I’m curious! What did your cousin decide?”
“Something about how the necessity of words is decided by their usefulness in modern speech and how commonly they’re used describing the intended subject, making necessity quite the useful word,” Thomas replied.
Eliza must have thought she was so smart knowing that. I knew fancy words too… I just couldn’t think of any right then.
Eliza nodded approvably, “I’m a lexicographer, meaning I know weird words like Dolorifuge: something that soothes grief, and that’s essentially the rules dictionary people use.”
“Dolorifuge, huh?” Thomas considered it deeply, “I suppose this conversation has been dolorifuge in a way. I’m at this bus stop to see my dying grandmother. I have a car, but she used to take me to this bus stop all the time, back when it had more than one stop, so I suppose it just felt right. I felt grief coming here, but I suppose this pleasant chat has made my darker feelings fade.”
I took a deep breath. I’ve had my fair share of grief too. When Dad died, I started coming to this bus stop, just like he used to. If Thomas came to this bus stop when he was little, did he see my father? Did they all wait together? Dad for his job? Thomas for school? I might not know Thomas, but maybe my father did. If so, then he wasn’t entirely unknown to me. If not, we still share the experiences of returning to nologisic bus stops. I liked knowing that.
“My father liked this bus stop too,” I added quietly.
Thomas and I shared a look, not one of recognition, but of realization – maybe our lives were more intertwined than we previously thought.
“Are you sure we don’t know each other?” Eliza asked Thomas, “ I’m also waiting here to see my dying grandmother.”
“That’d be quite the coincidence! You sure your name isn’t Darling?
“Maybe you misremembered my name,” Eliza laughed. “Only one way to check: have you ever been to Meriam Woods before?”
Thomas shook his head.
“Then we don’t know each other, and you’re lucky you never have been there; it’s horrid,” said Eliza in a forbidding tone.
Thomas and I shared another look. What was so horrid about Meriam Woods?
“I’m not your ordinary lexicographer; I work for Merriam-Webster,” Eliza brought her voice to a whisper, “as in the Webster cult.”
Thomas and I gasped. A Merriam-Webster cult!
“If you don’t believe me, I’ll prove it! That’s where I got this tattoo on my hand.” She showed us a red circle with the letter “M W” on her palm.
“Life there was very hard, but we did it all for Webster, our “god,” Eliza’s voice cracked, and she started to cry softly.
Thomas went to where she stood to pat her back. “My poor dear,” he said softly.
“But when they started the ritual,” a sob broke through, “I knew I had to go.”
As bad as I had felt for Eliza, I had felt a stronger urge to recoil in my seat upon seeing her tears. I could barely stand people I know crying, but it’s another level of discomfort with strangers! Strangers, I considered the word. Was Eliza really a stranger? I knew her name, her job, her past, her general personality. She probably didn’t consider me a stranger, or maybe so, but she didn’t treat me like one. She trusted Thomas and me enough to tell us this terrible truth. I wanted to respect that.
“I’m sorry, Eliza,” I said, still sitting on my seat, “You’re safe now. We’ll contact the authorities, and it’ll be okay”
She nodded her head in the midst of her sobs, sobs so violent they sounded like-
“Eliza, are you laughing?” Thomas asked, pausing in the middle of his pats.
Thomas and I shared a look, as Eliza’s “sobs” turned into uncontrollable snorts and giggles.
“I’m so sorry, I just can’t anymore. I lied to you guys,” she laughed, “I’m not from any cult, my name’s not even Eliza, nor am I a lexicographer. I just like messing with people, seeing how gullible they are, that sort of thing.”
“Suppose you did keep up the charade and we actually believed you, what would happen then?” I asked. To think I was going to contact the authorities. I tsked my tongue.
“Eliza” shrugged again. “Doesn’t bother me; you two are strangers, what are the chances we’ll ever meet again?”
That’s an awful excuse for lying.
“Has no one taught you it’s wrong to take advantage of people for entertainment?” Thomas inquired quite politely, given the circumstances, “Honestly, I’m embarrassed I thought you were my cousin.”
Before “Eliza” could respond, the long-awaited bus arrived. Silently, the pair climbed the stairs onto the bus. But before the doors shut, the bus driver remembered to ask me what he does every day.
“You coming on board, little lady?”
“No, thank you, sir. I just came here to think; no one ever comes, and I enjoy the quiet,” I said my catchphrase back, noting I would have to add an ‘almost’ before the ‘no one’ tomorrow.
As the bus drove into the fog, I was suddenly back to where I started: at the bus stop alone in the quiet.
I looked at my watch at 4:30. My sister and her husband would be arriving home soon, and I still hadn’t made their beds.
I shook my head- a whole 15 minutes’ worth of undisturbed thinking time vanished. Disappointed, I went to my car. I should have known better than to trust the people I met at bus stops.