and you wave the idling driver on. Enough with other voices challenging you … and besides, this is not, in fact, your stop. You don’t know how but you are certain of it. The driver muttershruggingly shuts the door, and the bus chuggles forward once more. An overhead light trembles on, better revealing the two men. They relax: each reaches into a satchel, pulls out a newspaper, snaps it open, begins reading.

Settle back into your seat, again accepting this journey you’re on. The bus will lead you somewhere, to the nextnext of the endless nexts. You don’t have to be in control—control is just an illusion, after all, your father said so all those years ago, or maybe it was a line in a shitty movie. Hard to say, been a long day. You woke up hours ago with good intentions or at least a lot of anxious energy, trying to get away from all your yesterdays. But the same voice remains inside you, the mean little homunculus in your computer skull, pushing your keys, pulling your levers, muttering along like a bus driver in the moonlit night.

Soon lights appear, two pairs of headlights in the middle of the road. The bus slows. The men fold their newspapers and peer forward. The bus stops. The men gather their satchels, stroll to the front, passing you by. Neither glances your way. They are in well-fit pinstripe suits, their shoes shined darker than darkness. Each makes a slow show of tipping the bus driver, pausing, reaching into back pocket, squinting into billfold, going through one bill after the next before passing the chosen one to the bus driver, who also makes a show of it, waving them off, No, no, I can’t, before finally relenting, Thank you kindly, tipping his cap. In turn, each man steps off. One goes to one car. The other, the other. From the window, you hear the idling of two powerful engines, see steam wisping from exhaust pipes.

When the bus river turns to you, scratching his head, you nearly cry out: it is the Captain.

He lowers his voice with urgency. “Go on!” he hisspers. “Now! You must follow him to save her. She has little time. Find Grimm Road,” he says. “Find the palace. Go!”

You stare at him, astonished.

“This is it!” he cries. “He’ll lead you to her, he always does!”

You nod and rise, hurrying toward the door. As you pass the Captain, though, you pause. You need one more answer. The Captain sees the enormous question on your face. “How can you not know? She’s your sister, fool! Go now!”

As you step off the bus, the two cars pull away in opposite directions, each down an unlit road. You turn to hail the Captain, but it’s too late, the bus is gone.

You are alone again, again caught in a strange place, set once more on a path brimming with meanings you don’t understand.

Yeah, fine. What else is new. Get stepping.