Boldizsár Berényi
Translated from the Hungarian by Diana Senechal
The morning was cold, as always. The fog slowly lifted over the city, like a cloak wrapping the world. The bus stop was empty; only I stood there, with deserted streets behind me and the glass-walled bus stop shelter ahead of me, reflecting back only my face. I still didn’t understand why I waited every morning. Perhaps because I had to pass the time somehow before going to school. Or maybe because I hoped for something, though I no longer knew exactly what or why.
Over the years, time became blurry. Every morning the same routine: waking up, bathing, getting dressed, and then this waiting. The bus never ran late, nothing ever changed. And neither did I.
What’s the bus driver’s name? I probably know, but it escapes me now. I’ve forgotten so much over the years.
People rush past me as if they have urgent matters to attend to. Maybe they do, but I can’t imagine what. Perhaps they, too, are waiting for something, like me. Or perhaps they’ve already found what I lost long ago, or what I never found.
I try to piece my past together, but I remember it only vaguely. Something happened, something important. But it’s all the same now. It doesn’t matter. Nothing does.
The clock ticks, as always. The bus still hasn’t come. But I am no longer waiting for it. I am just standing here, a solitary figure in the city’s bustle, trying to understand what I’m doing here, why me. Then suddenly I get it. I’m just a shadow in my own life. I vanished somewhere over the years, and now I exist only as an empty shell. Burnout has seized my soul, and now I don’t know what to do with it.
The bus arrived. Maybe I should go now. Maybe I could change something in my life. But I just stood there, motionless, and watched as people boarded and moved on with their lives. Perhaps tomorrow I’ll try again. Maybe then I’ll succeed. Maybe. But it doesn’t matter now. Nothing does.