The Ghost Bus
Of course, everybody knew there weren’t any ghosts on the Ghost Bus. It was kitsch, halloweeny-stuff that livened up the rest of the year. Ooh, the ghost bus is in town! Grab the kids, let’s hop on board! What wacky murals cover it now? Remember the year where it was painted to look like the Mystery Machine?
It was a hearse for culture. People were encouraged to bring things aboard as offerings- half-finished screenplays, the outline for that novel you were going to write in college, the first ten watercolors you tried before deciding you really ought to learn guitar. Give them to the Ghost Bus! The Ghost Bus loves your failures!
I had designed new footwear, and it’s really quite difficult to describe to you. This could be the reason venture capital was impossible to line up, but I think it was primarily due to the economy. The dotcom bubble wasn’t ready for new shoes. They were too busy sitting down at their desks to think about their feet. But the Ghost Bus loves my shoes. I wore them to the Ghost Bus the last time it was in town.
I walked home barefoot, and every pebble was a tender caress and a whisper in my ear, saying, “You did your best! Other people did better! Sleep now, the Ghost Bus loves you!”
This morning, my son came in screaming. He told us the Ghost Bus was here and we had to go see it. He had gotten good grades this year, and I promised we could go. I was making a sandwich at the time. I set it in a bowl so it wouldn’t get messy. The bowl was filled with water. I will bring the wet sandwich to the Ghost Bus.
Next year, I hope my son does not do so well in school. I hope he develops bad habits, like smoking and swearing louder than me. We will still go see the Ghost Bus. I will give him to it. I will be the proudest father as he drives it away, and the sun will set like a million tiny pieces of giving up.
Suzi Rose
Love, love, love this. It reminds me of stories I used love when I was a kid (and still do), it’s one of those “I wish I had written that” stories.
Reply
Cyn
I love this but, as always, I want more.
I like this super-weird idea of taking pride in one’s failures to the extent that one looks for or even creates said failures. Right now you’re sort of tickling/poking at this idea. A deeper exploration of the idea could be wildly satisfying. Or, possibly, slightly self-destructive for the writer. That’d be you.
What happens to our failures once we give them over to the Ghost Bus? What does the Ghost Bus do with them? What does it want with them?
This story reminds me of “The Ones Who Walk Away From Omelas,” a short story by Ursula LeGuin in which a seemingly idyllic town has dark, nasty secret which is revealed by the omniscient narrator in the course of talking about the ones who walk away – the citizens of the town who, upon learning the secret, cannot stomach it. I feel like you could do something similar with this idea.
Reply
Rol
Nice work, Matthew – some really great sentences here (loved the closing line)… though like Cyn, I’d love to see this idea developed further.
Reply
windy
good…but the bits on the sandwich nature were non-sequiters. people do not put sandwiches in bowls.
Reply
Nicolas Papaconstantinou
Of course they don’t! That’s why the narrator tries it!
It’s a pretty bad idea… it turns out, just bad enough for the Ghost Bus!
Reply
Andrew Cheverton
This, Matthew, is almost unutterably wonderful.
(And you completely created a world where, within two hundred-odd words, people would totally sandwiches in bowls…)
Reply
Nicolas Papaconstantinou
I have absolutely no idea where this idea came from, but it’s just brill, Matthew.
Unlike Rol and Cyn, I think it probably finishes at about the right point – it’s the sort of story that can probably only exist in ambiguity, as I think it’s about what something like the Ghost Bus means to the people, rather than the Bus itself.
Examination of the mechanics of the idea might make the idea lose it’s charm – as it is it has a kind of fabulous quality.
Have you ever read Magnus Mills?
Reply
Bridgeen Gillespie
Funny and cynical at the same time. I like the idea that this guy was already planning his son going on the bus as his biggest failure/greatest achievement… there is a joyful under achieving about the whole thing. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Everyone’s got something on the ghost bus.
Reply