Emma
“Can I have one of those?” She asks me. The tension in my head is overwhelming, but somehow I'm still just going through the motions. It reminds me of taking a sobriety test on a couple of hits of acid. I pull out a cigarette. This is going to be interesting.
“The bus is coming.”
“For later,” she says. “I'm a clove smoker, but evvvvery once in a while I like the nicotine, you know?” Figures. Apparently I'm good at interpreting a person by the sound of their voice. I'm still not prepared to see what happens if I turn around, so I pass the cigarette over my shoulder.
“Thanks,” she says. I feel the cigarette leave my fingertips and another little wave goes down my spine. Kind of syrupy this time. Warm. I have no idea what's going on, and I'm totally cool with it. Ride the wave. The bus halts in front of us.
“Mason Street!” the bus driver calls. I step on the bus, give up my fare and turn. Plenty of empty seats. I'm relieved.
“Sit in the back with me,” she says. It doesn't make much sense because I'm only on for a couple stops, but I give in. Might as well. I take a seat and slide over. I look out the window, noticing that I can't see anyone behind me in the reflection.
There are only a few people on the bus, but I'm reluctant to speak. I can play ball with the voice in my head, but I can't sit here and talk to nothing without someone noticing. For a second I think of pulling out my cell phone, but I don't do it. I'd rather be some crazy bum than the prick talking on his cell in the bus.
“Now can I ask you something?” She asks. I nod my head, hoping the signal is obvious enough. “You're going to think I'm crazy, but you have a glow about you...and I mean that kind of literally.” I laugh a little. “No, seriously. Like a little halo of light." My pulse is getting faster now. I can't stay silent, crazy or not.
"Glowing?" I ask quietly.
"Yeah, glowing. Tell me if I'm going crazy, just so I know either way." If this is a trick, it's working. I'm ready to confess to this voice. Tell her. Tell her you can't see her.
"You want to hear crazy?" I say, turning around. There's no one behind me at all, but I look straight ahead as if there were someone right in front of me. Go through the motions. Let it flow. "I can't see you," I say. An awful silence follows. Just before I'm convinced I'm crazy, I hear her again.
"I mean I can't see you at all. I see this bus, I see the seat behind you, I see the window, and I see the street going by. I can't see you. You're invisible." She laughs, but it subsides fast.
"You're not looking at my eyes," she says. "It's like you're--"
"Looking through you," I finish. "I am. There's nothing for my eyes to focus on." Silence again for a second.
"You're serious?" She saks. I give her a slow nod.
"I've never been more serious in my life. Am I really glowing?" She's silent again. Make light of the situation. "I can't see you nodding, you know." I smile, trying to pretend this is just a dream. "Now it's my turn to find out if I'm crazy. I can't see you, so for all I know I could just be talking to a voice in my head."
"A voice that bums cigarettes off you?" She laughs a little.
"If you noticed, I didn't watch you take that. I could have just dropped it." I'm grinning like a fool now, having fun with the situation. Plenty of crazy people ride the bus, and this isn't my neighborhood, so I'm getting cooler about continuing this conversation.
"I'll prove you didn't drop it. Here, take it back," she says.
"No, don't give me the cigarette back. Give me something else," I say. "That way I'll know I'm not crazy. "
"Like what?"
"I don't know...a hairtie? Your keys? Some gum maybe?" I hold out my hand, still looking straight ahead.
"Here," she says. I feel something drop into my hand, and I look down. It's a driver's license.
"Nice to meet you, Emma." I feel a light shove against me. Now my heart is racing fast again. "Did you just push me?" I hear a laugh.
"You're shitting me. You mean to tell me you can't see me, or my clothes, or my purse, but you can read that license in your hand?" Another shove, and I can't see where it's coming from. I get that drop-gravity roller coaster feeling in my stomach.
"I'm serious! I can see the license fine, and I still can't see you!" I'm getting kind of loud now, but no one on the bus seems to be paying attention.
"Well, at least tell me your name so we can be even," she says. I pull my wallet out and get my license.
"Here," I say. I hold out her license with mine, and both of them are taken from me. This time I watch it happen, and I freeze. "We've just shifted another gear on the weird transmission," I say. "I still see them, but I still don't see you."
"This is nonsense," she says. "You're telling me all you see are these licenses hanging out in the air?" I nod silently, watching the things move around. "I don't think I can believe that."
"Am I glowing?" I ask, still watching the licenses hover in front of me.
"I think there's a big difference between a little glow and someone being invisible...and yes, by the way--you are still glowing." I see the licenses hover down toward the seat, flipping around on their ends. "Let's settle this," Emma says. "I'm going to flip these things around behind my back, and you tell me the hand that each license is in and the way it's facing." The weirdness is overwhelming, but I can't help but break a smile, watching the licenses spin around, flipping back and forth in a futile attempt to trick me. "Done," she says. "Now tell me."
I look at both of the licenses. "You've got yours in your right hand. The front side is facing me. Mine is in your left hand. I see the back of it." I see the licenses arc around toward me, facing slightly away from me.
"No shit," she says, seeing that my answers are dead on. "But you had a 1 in 4 chance of getting that right."
"1 in 8," I correct her. "We can try something else if you'd like." Emma giggles.
"This is a dream, right?" She asks. "There's no way I could really be invisible...and even if you are crazy, there's no way you could have known that unless you saw right through my midsection." I see my license hang closer to me, and I hesitate. "You really can't see me, can you?"
"That's what I've been saying, Emma." Just as I reach for my license, it pulls away from me. "Hey--what's that all about?"
"Sorry. I needed your name. We're even now, Travis." I laugh.
"TJ, actually." She hands it back to me, and I place it back in my wallet.
"So if I'm visible to me, it must be that you don't see your glow, TJ." she says. I look down at myself.
"Fraid not," I say. "But let's say this is a dream."
"Okay..."
"Whose is it?" I ask. Emma laughs again.
"I don't know--I'd say it's mine," she says in a playful tone.
"And I'd say it's mine, of course." I laugh.
"Fine. Say it's a dream. Say we're both insane."
My heart races again when I rethink the situation. I get to the bus stop; I light a cig; I check out a woman; I feel someone approach me; I see nothing; I hear my middle name: Jackson. Was it Emma? I'm running over the voice now, trying to determine if it was hers.
You're very observant, Jackson.
I can't make up my mind. Is Emma fucking with me? Am I still just insane?
"What's my middle name, Emma?" I ask.
"Um...Jackson?" Emma says. "It's a cool middle name. Have people always called you TJ?" It hits me that she just looked at my license, so I have to go about this another way.
"What's the first thing you said to me at the bus stop this morning?"
"I asked you why you bothered finding a trashcan for your butt," she says. "What's this about?"
"Did you hear me say, Don't leave me hanging, if you're going to talk, talk?"
"No, I think the first thing you said to me was that you liked the city. You responded to my question," she says. "What's with the retrace?"
"There's something else to this situation," I say. "Something other than me not seeing you and you seeing a glow around me. When I got to the bus stop this morning, I heard a voice say my middle name."
"Maybe we're both crazy," she says. "When did this happen?"
"Right before we talked, apparently."
"Alright," she said. "I've got something else to confess."
"What?" I'm almost trembling now.
"I walked to a different bus stop this morning, because..." She pauses. I can't stand this.
"What?"
"It was like a there was a lit path," she says. "Like a glow. I followed it all the way to this bus stop, and there you were."
"Glowing," I finish. Silence again. "I told you I can't see you nodding, Emma." She's laughing again.
"How do you even know I'm nodding?"
"I don't know," I say. "You get quiet."
"So what does this mean?"
"I have no idea, but I'm willing to cancel my plans to find out."