Night bus 47

I fell asleep on the night bus after a late shift and woke up somewhere I didn't recognise.

The bus was still moving. The other passengers sat very straight and very still, each one alone, all of them facing forward. Nobody had a phone out. The windows showed fields and dark hedges, no streetlights.

The little screen above the driver showed the next stop. It wasn't a place name. It was a date: 14 March 1983.

The bus stopped. An old man near the front stood up, smoothed his coat, and got off. He didn't look back. The doors hissed shut and we kept going.

2 August 1991. A woman in a nurse's uniform got off.

30 November 2004. A teenage boy in a football shirt. He was crying, but he went.

I moved up to the front and asked the driver where we were going. He didn't turn round. "Last stop's coming," he said. "Everyone gets off eventually."

The dates kept going. 2011. 2016. 2022. Each time, someone stood up and went out into the dark. Soon there were only three of us left: me, a young woman with a suitcase, and a man in a suit who kept checking his watch.

The screen changed again. It showed today's date.

The man in the suit looked at it, looked at his watch, and laughed a small, tired laugh, like he'd always known. He stood up. So did the woman with the suitcase. They both looked at me.

I didn't stand up.

"You've got a choice, sometimes," the driver said quietly, still not turning his head. "Not often. Only if you're still awake."

I pressed myself into the seat and dug my nails into my palms and kept my eyes open, while the doors stayed open and the cold came in and the two of them stepped off into nothing.

I woke up at the bus depot at six in the morning with the cleaner shaking my shoulder. My palms were bleeding.

I checked the news later. A man in a suit had a heart attack on a train platform at 2:40 in the morning. A young woman with a suitcase was hit by a car outside the airport around the same time.

And a third person, a night worker, was found on a bus with no pulse, and then, against all odds, started breathing again.

That one was me. They tell me I was gone for four minutes.

I don't take the night bus anymore. But some nights, when I'm almost asleep, I hear the hiss of doors and see a little glowing screen, and the date on it is getting closer.