Chapter 2 — Bus
Welcome back, my council children.
Last chapter ended with a train.
A glorious train.
A terrible train.
A train that taught me I could become someone new.
Now.
Two days pass.
The train arrives.
And finally,
at long last,
I reach the destination.
The council applauds.
Children.
Please.
We’re not even halfway there.
The council groans.
Correct.
Because after the train came the bus.
And before the bus.
came the ticket.
Now.
Picture this.
I step into the bus station.
Confident.
Victorious.
Fresh from my great railway pilgrimage.
And immediately I am swarmed.
The council braces.
Bandits?
Thieves?
Cult recruiters?
Children.
Worse.
Ticket vendors.
The council erupts.
Now.
The problem wasn’t the ticket vendors.
The problem was that legitimate ticket vendors and scammers appeared to be operating from the exact same character model.
Identical clothing.
Identical confidence.
Identical energy.
There was absolutely no way to tell who was real.
The council asks how I solved this problem.
Simple.
I selected the closest human being within arm’s reach.
The council collapses.
Children.
I never claimed competence.
Now.
A fascinating complication emerged.
I knew English.
He did not.
He knew Hindi.
I did not.
Thus began one of the most sophisticated negotiations of my life.
The council prepares.
Ticket?
Ticket.
Destination?
Destination.
Pointing.
Nodding.
Confusion.
More pointing.
The council applauds.
A flawless multilingual exchange.
Now.
Eventually he produced a QR code.
I scanned it.
Transferred money.
The council waits.
Then?
Nothing.
No receipt.
No ticket.
No confirmation.
No paperwork.
No evidence.
The council grows concerned.
Children.
At this point I was approximately ninety percent certain I had just funded someone’s lunch.
The transaction was complete.
My money was gone.
And all I possessed was faith.
A dangerous thing to place in bus stations.
Now.
The man pointed toward another man.
Who pointed toward another man.
Who pointed toward a bus.
The council nods.
The ancient relay system.
And so I followed.
Entirely convinced I had been scammed.
Yet somehow,
there it was.
A bus.
An actual bus.
The council applauds.
A shocking twist.
Now.
You may imagine this bus ride was filled with adventure.
New friendships.
Interesting conversations.
Personal growth.
Children.
No.
Two days in the train had transformed my spine into modern art.
The moment I found a flat surface,
I disconnected from reality.
Instantly.
No resistance.
No hesitation.
One moment conscious.
The next moment unavailable.
The council writes.
“Archivist has left the server.”
Correct.
Now.
Hours later,
I reconnected.
The council waits.
And immediately realized something was wrong.
The scenery looked unfamiliar.
The atmosphere felt suspicious.
The bus contained fewer people.
A terrible truth emerged.
Children.
I had missed my stop.
The council erupts.
Of course you did.
Now.
For a brief moment,
I accepted my fate.
This is it, I thought.
The journey ends here.
Not with adventure.
Not with enlightenment.
But with me accidentally migrating to an undisclosed location because I took a nap too aggressively.
A fitting end.
Then salvation arrived.
The council leans forward.
A vehicle.
Not a car.
Not a bus.
Not a taxi.
Children.
A cow powered vehicle.
The council loses composure.
Now.
I have no idea whether it was technically a cart,
a carriage,
or some rural transportation system beyond my understanding.
What matters is this.
There was a cow.
The cow was moving.
And I was moving with it.
The council nods.
Transportation achieved.
Now.
At long last,
I arrived.
Finally.
The destination.
The council cheers.
Children.
Have you learned nothing?
The council immediately stops cheering.
No.
I arrived at the next bus stop.
The council collapses.
Correct.
Because journeys are deceptive.
They pretend destinations exist.
They lure you with promises of arrival.
Then reveal another road.
Another vehicle.
Another wrong turn.
Another chapter.
And so ended the train.
And the bus.
And the cow powered sequel.
Not with arrival.
But with proximity.
The closest thing wanderers ever truly get.
Thus concludes Chapter Two.
The lesson?
If a journey requires a train,
a bus,
and livestock,
you are not travelling.
You are being transported by fate itself.
And fate,
as we will soon discover,
has absolutely no idea where it’s going.
