The Last Bus Home – Part 1: One Stop Past

The last bus along the Atlantic seaboard left the city at eleven-forty, and Sipho slept through the first half of the route.

He woke with a start. The bus was parked at a dark terminus, the engine ticking, the sea breathing somewhere beyond a row of palms. Across the aisle sat a man with a laptop bag on his knee and a faint, amused look.

"You missed your stop," said the man. "Forty minutes ago."

"Why didn't you wake me?"

"You looked like you needed it." He was thirty-one, broad-shouldered, with tired hazel eyes and an accent from somewhere colder. "Daniel. I'm sorry. I'd have woken you if I'd known you were a danger to yourself."

Sipho laughed, rubbing his eyes. He was twenty-eight, a nurse coming off a double shift, in scrubs and sandals. "Sipho. I'm stranded."

"Not stranded. There's a taxi in about ten minutes, if the driver is awake. Or we can walk to the beach. It's lovely at midnight."

"You've been here before?"

"I live here. I just also fall asleep on buses."

The beach was a long pale curve under a moon, the Atlantic black and loud. They sat on the cool sand with their shoes off. Daniel produced two warm cans of ginger beer from his bag and apologised for them.

"Can I ask you something?" said Sipho.

"Yes."

"Why are you out so late?"

"I teach by day. I write at night. It's the only time the city's quiet." He looked at the sea. "And I'm lonely, sometimes. That's the real answer."

Sipho's chest tightened, kindly. "Me too."

"Green?" said Daniel, on impulse.

"Green," said Sipho, softly. "Very green. Is the taxi really coming?"

"I may have lied about the taxi."

Continue the story: Part 2 – Sunrise Line.