Flash Fiction
“Like walking back home along the rim of the galaxy.”
“Yeah, it’s exactly like that.”
He told his imaginary friend, the rabbit. And it really was like that, the trip home, the sidewalks, the always empty bus. It was just like circuiting the entire circumference of the galaxy just to reach earth in some dark, gloomy alley somewhere near the center.
But it had its charms.
Sometimes he wished he would get mugged, just to stave off the loneliness. The next moment the chivalry would desert him like a shower of sand and he would return to his imaginary friends and lonely romanticism.
The bus was late today, which was unusual but not alarming.
A piece of filthy newspaper whirled mirthlessly in the slight breeze. The glare of the streetlights fell vertically down on the sidewalks in a yellow splat, but were otherwise unable to lighten the night.
He waited silently for the bus. His friend rabbit did the same. Somewhere, far away, a bus accelerated towards their bit of the galaxy; and somewhere, further away, stood his house, waiting and cold.
The walk did have its charms. It was long, absurdly long, and empty and cold, a void, but it had its magnanimity. It had its romanticisms. Because given time, people can romanticize and glorify anything. Loneliness, cancer, war. Meaninglessly long detours.
Sometimes his rabbit friend would ask him why he took the long way around, why he didn’t take a cab or bus through the city.
He wouldn’t reply. He could imagine himself saying that it was an exercise, both a physical and mental one. He could say that it was to revel in the solitude, to envelope himself into the headspace of the story he was working on. But replying would be too close to tackling the subject, too close to confrontation.
So he didn’t reply. Instead, he got on the bus when it arrived fifteen minutes late and got out of it when it hit the second to last stop. Then, he would tie his rabbit friend to a post near the bus stand.
The rabbit wasn’t allowed any nearer to the house, so he would never really know. Would never know unless he told him. And he wouldn’t.