An Ordinary Bus Ride: Page 5

As the elevator door closed, I saw this building had one of those weird floor "numbering" systems I'd seen in a few places. They were actually lettered. The button for floor "C", presumably the third floor, was pressed.

When we got there, again, someone was waiting for the elevator as we got off. Just like the man downstairs, she spoke to me and to the box. I noticed that neither of them had said a name, hadn't even pretended to try to remember one, just "Hello." So, maybe everybody in this building had some kind of mysterious secret...?

I followed the box to apartment to apartment C0, silently noting the irony that apartment "see zero" would be occupied by someone who can't be seen. The two keys that had been floating above the box ever since the first key had been used now went to work, each unlocking its proper lock, after which the door swung open. Both keys pulled out of the door and dropped onto a table just inside, as the box and I entered the apartment. The box disappeared down a hallway while the door swung closed and locked itself behind me. I even saw the chain lock apply itself with no visible help, by which point my... "hostess?"... had, uh, disappeared behind closed doors.

Momentarily the closed door (not the front door, the one the box had ducked behind) opened, and jeans similar to the ones modeled in the store emerged, topped by a rather tightly-filled knit sweater, with matching knit gloves at the ends of its sleeves. Again, no sign of the box which had seemed so integral a few moments earlier. But that thought fled my mind as I took in the sight of these well-filled clothes walking towards me.

The clothes stepped towards a kitchen, where a cabinet opened and a glass floated out. The outfit grabbed the glass from the air, then cocked it towards me, which I took to be an offer of something to drink.

"Um, sure. What do you have?" I replied, wondering what empty clothes needed with something to drink. Or an apartment, for that matter.

The clothes turned towards the refrigerator but it opened without any apparent move by the outfit to open it. A couple of things slid around on the top shelf, and I saw a few different fruit juices, along with lemonade, ice water, ginger ale, and even beer. I decided on cranberry juice, watching as the jar floated out, filled the glass still being held by my oufit-hostess (or hostess-outfit), and returned to the fridge. Just before the fridge door closed itself, I noticed all kinds of food in there, and again I wondered why empty clothes needed a refrigerator... or food.

"Thank you," I said, as the outfit handed me the glass of juice, and led the way to the living room couch. It gestured for me to sit first, so I did, expecting it to sit next to me. I sipped my juice, noticing that the clothes hadn't moved. When I leaned towards the table to put my glass down, a coaster from a stack on the other end of the table floated towards me. I waited for it to stop, then put my glass down. The outfit was apparently waiting for me to lose the glass, because once I did, it sat right in my lap. Actually, it sat sideways in my lap; as soon as it did, its shoes unstrapped themselves and floated down to the floor, as the outfit wrapped its sleeves around my neck. I put my left arm around its back, while my right arm busied itself with getting more familiar with this sweater. That led to the gloves leaving their places at the end of the sweater's sleeves to caress and massage my shoulders, while the sweater actually pressed the ends of its empty armholes against my face, as if to emphasize that there was no body in it.

And that's where the story ends. Like I said at the beginning, I don't know if this really happened or not. If it was a dream, I can't say for sure that I was asleep at the time, and if it really happened, I can't say for sure that it happened to me.

back to My Original Stories

Table of Contents