Guest Short Story: The Glass Prism

As the glass slab on wheels slowly but steadily pursued its destination, you couldn’t help but rock and sway with its movements as if you were placed amidst rocky waves. Being completely made of glass, one would think that riding in such a vehicle would make one feel exposed and one with their surroundings. But looking around, you can’t help but feel a disconnect with the people and places around you. The world feels distorted despite you having a crystal-clear view of it. You expect to feel the wind as tree branches bend and yaw and hair strands billow in the breeze but the air around you remains stale and stagnant. The sun rains down and coats every surface imaginable but from the bus, you can feel it glisten but somehow, you can’t feel its heat. 

There’s something both oppressive and freeing about going on the journey you’re on, on a bus such as this. With nothing from the outside world, not even the people and animals roaming by, seeming to acknowledge the presence of the bus, you can’t help but let your thoughts run away from you. Are you really here? What does it even mean to be real? Is this all some hallucination that your brain’s thought up, finally cracking under the weight of suffocating mundanity? You suddenly feel the need to get off. Like if you don’t get off right this second you’ll collapse in on yourself when you meet the eyes of another passenger across the way. 

You don’t know this person, not truly, but a part of you feels like you could’ve passed them on the street one day. You don’t understand why they’re on the bus, and you’ll probably never know. No one talks on this glass prism despite how many passengers it holds. Without saying a word, they give you a tiny smile just enough to let you know it’s there. 

That’s when you realize. 

All of the strangers on the bus, with their unique destinations and their varied reasons for traveling, are fragments of you. That one way you laugh, that experience you had five years ago, that one food that you love, little parts of your very existence are all in these fellow passengers of yours. With that line of thinking you also share pieces of them too. This prism has given you the gift of being able to see the parts of yourself reflected in these strangers. 

You wonder if you share fragments with the people you pass or if there’s something special about the bus and its journey. 

You take a deep breath and feel yourself becoming grounded. The suffocating feeling from before dissipates, and you allow your fascination with the cityscape to distract from your background noise of wayward thoughts. 

The bus rolls down the road oblivious and apathetic to your mini breakdown. But now, the destination feels closer than before, and the trip is more manageable. You clutch your stuff to your chest and find yourself more hopeful about this journey than before. 

As the glass slab on wheels slowly but steadily pursues its destinations, the passengers and you can’t help but rock and sway with its movements as if y’all were placed amidst rocky waves.