Object show oneshots

18. Testbulb - Sonder

I got the idea for this after seeing a man and a woman bump into each other on the street by accident, and I began wondering if they knew each other, because they seemed more than just a little surprised
haven't written II in too long

"Do you ever look at a stranger, and think of all the things you'll never know?" ~ Danger Noodle (RIP)

Hey, stop.
That's what I say to everybody on the street, whenever I'm intrigued by them. I think loudly in my head to feign a connection to somebody in my world outside of the inverted fish-bowl I've learnt to pull over myself to protect me.
Hey, stop, I think as the bus pulls across the zebra crossing and away from that person forever. There was a woman sat across from me on the train the other day that I felt an inexplicably strong urge to go over and hug, not realising why until I saw the striking resemblance to my own mother. I was constantly feeling the old riptides of affection pulling my attention to her until she got off at one of the stations furthest from my childhood home, snapping across the floor in her heels and stepping out of the doors. The urge to get up and stop her was overwhelming.
"No, stop! Wait!"
I sat in my seat, wanting desperately to be feet away in the aisle, begging my mother for a hug. She's hundreds of miles away, even if she appeared to be in the platform melting away into countryside as the train continued, and life rolled on without me.
I wasn't ready for the reality of adulthood.

A man walking four grubby papillons. A woman in a hijab lugging her clean clothes home from the laundrette. Pavement traffic, scuttling by as normal, racing past my drooping eyelids to be lost from my memory forever. It all squashes itself into an amalgamated chunk of playdough that rolls along the street, each individual bright colour indistinguishable from the next. I wasn't listening to the radio anymore. The pools of music dropped from the ends of stalactites and into themselves, dripping in one ear and out of the other. Oh well. It's always an endless loop of the top ten in the chart anyway. I met the eyes of a man, crouching outside the Co-op consoling a French Bulldog, once and never again. I barely recalled the heavy smoke of clouds over Canary Wharf that reminded me of sodden, dirty cotton wool, or the rash of lights that infected the city on the horizon. I was now within the slow decay of houses on the outskirts and happy of it. London interested me. It was nothing like where I grew up. I'm seeing parts of the world and of myself burst up into blossoms that I never knew could exist. Out onto a main road, people everywhere. The twirling eddies of skirts or whirlpooling oversized puffa jackets mesmerised my eyes as people flowed across the faded zebra crossing at the lights, the bus halting with a hiss and screech of brakes. A well-groomed woman with Ray Bans on her blonde head holding a child in a white baby-grow at her hip. A group of four fur hooded youths of uncertain gender. A young couple linking arms as they paraded their golden-brindle lurcher. A woman with a maroon handbag over her shoulder. A woman - the woman with a maroon handbag over her shoulder. Instantly, she grabbed my attention. About twenty or so, she wore huge round glasses, a verdant lime green coat that dropped dramatically down to her knees like a blank tapestry, hideously white socks pulled too far up her legs, and mousy brown hair trussed up into a neat low ponytail at the back of her head. Even from this distance, I could tell she had freckles. She had a freckle vibe to her, and even if I hadn't seen her face, I would've taken a hard guess at her cheeks being splattered with the brown drips of paint from some celestial being handcrafting humans before life even began. These cheeks were slightly rosy too from the cold air, and her glasses were neon with the screen of her phone. The brightness was turned all the way up. What a heathen. But then she did have some form of pride pin attached to her bag... that was a redeemable feature.
She had a socially awkward walk. More of a shrewd stumbling over the road than a method of moving, she shambled up the kerb in front of the bus. I caught what I thought would be the last view of her before she was lost to eternity from me, but then that little voice in my head spoke up.
Hey, stop.
The corner of the maroon bag that clashed so hideously with her outfit halted just beyond the church wall she'd walked along the main pavement behind. Waiting, sniffing the air. Surely a coincidence.
But then she retraced her steps, glancing around in confusion and fear, eyes bulging from her head, further magnified by her saucerlike glasses.
Can you hear me?
The woman continued to circle around the bike locks, looking around everywhere in horror and intrigue.
Can you hear me? Nod twice. Nod twice for yes.
My breath steamed up the glass as I pushed my hands up flat to the pane, sure to leave a greasy stain of dead skin cells for the whole world to tell I had been there. My pulse spiked as I saw her bob her head incredulously.
You can hear me.
I saw her mouth yes. I couldn't hear her, but there was no doubt we were somehow connected. Why? How? Was it me with the power, or her, or neither?
Who was doing this?
I can't detect your thoughts.
Maybe a distant confused scramble of smushed-up nonsense, like a scribble of the neuron network in the brain done in blue crayon.
I want to know you.
Call this number.
I don't know how I managed to send her my number, as all I thought up in my mind was a screenshot of my vision from earlier of my contact details on my phone that I had seen earlier. I couldn't remember what my number had been, only that it had been there. I also remember seeing the crinkled mini roll wrapper that had lain underneath my feet on the last bus, but that wasn't important. She obviously received this image, though, and could somehow read it. She immediately whipped out her phone and began to tap frantically on the touchscreen, soon raising it to her ear.
My phone chimed. Picking it up with a raw, crackling breath, I tapped my fingertips on my knee as I copied her pose, swiping sideways to answer the call.
"H-hello?"
"Good afternoon, stranger."
"That's a creepy greeting. I - how? Just how?"
The bus started rocking forwards. As it revved into motion, I took a look out of the steamed-up window to see the woman hugging her body close to itself with one arm and holding her phone as if clamping one ear shut. Her eyes darted around a lot and she appeared to be shivering. I didn't blame her.
"It beats me, but it's pretty cool."
"Why are you not freaked out in the slightest by this?"
"I'm used to strange stuff happening to me."
"Right..."
A few moments of dead air on the line. The bus turned on an axis over the crossroads, orbiting around the woman I had connected with, steering onto a different street. The one she was heading down. She was looking like she wanted to hang up.
"Look over the road."
"Oh god, can you see me right now?"
Her eyes scanned the rows of shops. Food and wine stores. A Soviet hypermarket. A pub or two. A bus.
Their eyes met.
"Is that you? On the bus? You there on the phone?"
I smiled mysteriously.
"Perhaps."
"Holy shit, you're really cute."
"Some might say that."
A bus stop approached a few yards further down the pavement, overlooking the food stores on one side and broken gravestones imprisoned behind mortal church gates on the other.
"The bus looks like it's coming into a stop here."
I noticed her hesitate, tempted, but still confused and overwhelmed.
"I don't know..."
"It's ok if you don't want to."
The woman looked over both shoulders as if she were being stalked by an invisible being, sighing in uncertainty but continuing forwards at a quicker pace.
"This is so weird." she whispered as if to herself.
"You're going straight towards the unknown. I rate that."
"I'm nearly here."
I saw her whip a purse from her maroon handbag; a similar monstrosity of velvety fabric that sagged with the intense weight of too much loose change. She hung up the phone, which transmitted a soft beeping refusal into my ear, causing me to drop my phone down into my lap. Her coins jingled into the hands of the driver, who grumbled at the reams of silver. And finally I could see her without the tinted shade of the glass.
Her clothes were brighter than I could ever have imagined. It was truly hideous.
"Oh god."
She came up the aisle, clutching her purse in both her hands. Vulnerable. An aura suggesting that of a pensioner, or an anxious raccoon. She spotted me almost instantly, eyes blowing wide open, taking in all my features, mapping my identity. Forming a first impression.
"H-hey."
"Hi! Lightbulb, encantada."
"I'm sorry?"
"It's Spanish. Here, sit down."
I scooted to the side, taking my black and grey backpack off the seat next to me, fumbling at the handleless zips to desperately try and close away the electric blue lining that would expose too many prawn cocktail crisp packets. The maroon bag sailed down off her shoulder to plop down to rest on the floor next to mine.
"So, your name. I'd love to know it."
The woman pushed a strand of hair out of her face, turning huge limpid eyes to me.
"Uh, Test Tube. I work at a lab in Camden. It's my day off, I just came back from one of my friends' houses."
"You have friends? Lucky. I only really have one proper friend, and they work in Italy now..."
Memories of Paintbrush flooded back like a battering ram being shoved into my chest, shattering my ribcage with one powerful blow. But I restructured my castle and continued.
"Anyway. Enough about me. Tell me about you."

Broskis, I have no sleep schedule. I feel most awake at 1am. I really have to end it here but I'll do another part soon, I think. Maybe. Hopefully.
Keep your eyes peeled!