Sunlight cascaded through the window in sheets as the new rays of daylight became visible over the horizon. James lay slumped in the bus chair, his head lolling to the right. Sleep was fleeting, and the first vestiges of brightness woke him. Instinctively, he checked to make sure his backpack was still at his feet and undisturbed. He surveyed the other people around him. Greyhounds typically had a diverse population, though James had never cared to mingle and trade life stories.
The seat next to him was vacant. Across the aisle, an old man was still snoring softly with his wife or sister sitting in the window seat. Directly in front of James, he saw long locks of golden, burnished hair but nothing else. James was three rows back from the driver on the left side, so most of the other passengers were behind him. The majority were still asleep, though some looked as if they hadn’t slept at all or, at best, had found a few passing winks. One man looked to be in his thirties and had bloodshot eyes. At first glance, James thought his pupils were red. He didn’t get too good of a look though, since he had to crane his neck all the way around to see him. He was five rows back on the right.
James sighed inwardly. The seat was comfortable, it felt like leather, but he couldn’t find a restful position no matter how he twisted and turned. He could scarcely remember the last time he had slept in a bed.
He was young, and hiding. His mom was calling his name throughout the house. He heard her footsteps, exaggerated, and she was getting closer. She knew where he was, he could feel it, but she was making a show of taking her time looking for him. He was in his pajamas, and had already washed up, but he wasn’t tired yet. He didn’t want to go to bed.
“James? Where are you, you little lemon?” she called. She was right outside the door to the closet he was hiding in. It was cramped and dark. “Lemon, lemon, lemon,” she sang. “Sourest of the fruits, where are you lemon?”
There was a pause. The air was expectation. Then the door swung outward and she reached in and scooped him up like a sack of lemons. He struggled and shrieked, but she bundled him off to bed and he fell into the covers in a tangled heap.
“You need to sleep if you want to grow up big and strong. Good night, James.” She kissed his brow and left. Darkness.
He felt frozen in his seat. The scenery washed past the window, fields of crops and trees, cows and pasture, abandoned farms and wild forests. Definitely not his room of many years ago. He felt an immense loneliness then, and missed his mom more than ever before. His right hand ran up and down his left forearm, fingering the long, thin scar there. Claustrophobia pressured him from all sides. The bus felt like it was skidding to him, sliding into a giant truck, though his eyes told him they were alone on the highway.
Headlights played off the road’s surface. Dark as pitch with stars everywhere. He wasn’t in the city anymore. This was nowhere, and the darkness pressed on the corners of the young boy’s sanity, full of apprehension in the back, right seat. His mom was in front of him in the passenger seat, his dad was driving. He had been driving for several hours now. James hoped his dad was as awake as him, though he started to nod off even as he thought that. It was late and he was young, though at twelve he wouldn’t dare admit his youth.
As his head began to sink farther and farther, he had the sensation of sliding. Vertigo started taking over, and his head rose in time to see the car listing into the left lane and the oncoming truck.
He was vigorously rubbing the scar now, the scar where a piece of flying metal had slit open his skin. He was lucky to have walked away from that. His parents… Not so lucky. He missed his mom. He reached down and hefted the backpack up to the vacant seat next to him, and rooted around for his sketchpad. He pulled out a pencil from his pencil bag, and started sketching what he saw in front of him. The bumps of the road and swaying of the bus made it difficult, but he persevered. The girl with the golden hair, the bus driver, the chairs: all rendered in quick strokes. He briefly entertained a fantasy that the girl in front of him was his mom and that she would turn around and praise his drawings like she used to. Faint hope.
