How Strange

On our journey back in a crowded bus, we had to share a seat with a stranger. The speed of the bus was less entertaining. I thought my daughter was exhausted, on the contrary, she was totally engaged in a play with her baby doll welcoming the slightly cold wandering wind into the hot atmosphere of the bus making blissful greetings every now and then. Then she felt the need to take a break and shifted all of her attention towards the stranger who was totally immersed in a book. How can a person read under such circumstances? He surely lives life well estranged. Odd that he didn't even notice something falling out from the very book he is reading. It might be an old leaf of paper considering the physical condition of the book. 

Meanwhile, my daughter went down my lap, took the thing from the dusty floor and handed it to me. I was taken aback, not because it was a photograph instead of what I thought it was but because of the image in it smiling right at me. At first, I thought it only resembled me because I don't know him and I cannot recollect a memory in which I was near a waterfall ever before. But as I kept on looking, I could hear the water and feel the cool breeze. It's me!

"Something wrong?"

I might have been thinking aloud. The stranger heard me but he asked without looking up. I felt so sick that I didn't reply but yes, everything about this is wrong. Out of the blue, he took the photograph out of my hand, put it in his book and continued reading as if nothing happened. But I needed an explanation and when I was about to ask he shut the book and looked right at me. I saw those fierce eyes but why do they look so familiar.

"Everybody hold on. Don't panic."

Someone at the front yelled. Many things were happening all at once. Everyone on the bus was freaking out, everyone except the stranger who was still looking at me. My daughter asked what was happening and I held her tight. We lost control of the bus.I was having a myriad of thoughts like, say the stranger somehow jinxed the bus was one among them. The engine started puffing smoke that was piling inside enough to lose track of what's going on and it failed. At least, no death, no injuries. Somehow we made it through.

Later I was glad to be able to get out of that bus and everything from it. Home is only a walking mile away so travel the rest by foot it is. After a while, it was getting dark and the woods on either side was pretty overwhelming too I started regretting my decision.

"You seem lost."

I turned around to see the voice that nearly skipped a beat in me. It was the stranger on the bus indeed. Only this time he is not alone. He is holding a child in his arm, her sleepy head resting on his shoulder. Probably his kid. Maybe on the bus, I didn't notice. As I was lost in thoughts something slipped from the child's hand that broke the silence when it hit the ground. I picked up the baby doll and handed it to the stranger, to the father. 

"I think I am better on my own."

He didn't say anything to what I said. He just looked at me concerning. But those eyes, why do they look so familiar. I felt more and more uncomfortable and lost as I kept on looking at the man, the child and the doll in his hand. The dark woods started spinning but I managed to regain my sanity and started walking towards home. Still can't escape them. I can hear the strange company behind heading the same way I do. Hoping our paths would soon diverge I set my worries aside. Once again a journey with the stranger was set by fate. God be our guard who knows what might befall amidst these silent woods where strangeness echoes.