The 178

      Blink.
      “- John Doe. He downed a bottle of pills with scotch -”
      Blink.
      “- His BP is dropping, we gotta get him-”
      Blink.
      “- He’s flat lining! Get the paddles or we’re gonna lose -”
      Blink. Blink.

     ***

      Blink. His head slipped to the side, jolting him awake. In a daze, he looked around, taking in his surroundings. He didn’t know where he was. He was moving, or - not him, but the vehicle that he was in. It looked like a bus. Ratty fabric covered the seats beside him, their colour almost completely bleached from the sun shining through the full wall of windows on either side of him. It was too bright outside for him to see anything. Maybe the windows were just foggy - he couldn’t tell.

      “Where am I?”

      “You’re on the 178, going counter-clockwise. You should know, you’re the one that got on the bus.”

      He looked around for the soft voice that had replied to his question. Across the aisle from him, a woman was sitting, her legs crossed at the ankles. He couldn’t make out any details of her face - it was like it was blurred out. He could tell that her hair was brown, and that she had on a red jacket, and a pretty blue scarf. That was all, though.

      “Who are you?” he asked.

      “That doesn’t matter right now. You’ll figure it out eventually. What matters is why you’re here. Why are you here?”

      “I don’t know. I don’t even know where I am. All I want is to lea-”

      “No, no, no, no, no, no, no!!!! You can’t leave me! Jingle bells, jingle bells, jingle all the way!! No, no, no!”

      The shrieking, manic voice came from the front of the bus. Startled, he looked around, noticing that there was another man sitting on the ground by the driver’s seat.  He was wearing clothing that was completely torn apart; his hair mussed and matted, and he had a crazed look in his eyes. His arm was twitching incessantly.

      “Oh don’t mind him. He’s always like that.” The soft voice of the woman beside him interrupted his analysis of the man at the front of the bus. He had seemed oddly familiar, but he knew that he had never met this man. Not really.

      “What is going on?”

      “Who am I?”  She asked.

      “I don’t know! I just want to know what’s going on!”

      “Who am I?” This time she said it firmly.

      “I DON’T KNOW!” He yelled. “I don’t know anything, so how can you expect me to know who you are?”

      A new voice came from his left. “We expect you to know who we are because you do know who we are.”

      The man beside him was dressed in a suit. He looked nice, put together, but the illusion of stability was shattered when he notice the bottle of scotch the man was holding. He was drunk. He was hiding from something, and his only way out was to get drunk. He didn’t know how he knew this, but he did. It showed on his face that he was in an immense amount of pain, but that he’d do anything to conceal it from everyone around him.

      “I don’t know you. I don’t know anyone here!”

      “Yes you do. You just don’t want to dig deep enough to find us. We’re all in your head; you just can’t remember who we are.” The man’s voice was slurred, his hand shakily bringing the bottle to his mouth again. His eyes glazed over, and he turned his head away, evidently finished with the conversation.