Through a set of bright surgical lights, a woman emerged in a blue surgical gown and a name tag that read “Ma”. Her face hid shadows in the crevices of her skin; despite her pulled-back hair trying to keep her creases taught, she sagged. Rubber shoes slapped against the cement floor and echoed against walls that were unable to be seen because of the blinding lights. Ma stopped in front of a young woman sitting in a short, metal school chair, hair cropped short and dripping as if from embryonic fluid. She wore nothing but a simple gown, not paper, but almost, and held her body rigid, staring forward in oblivion.

       “I’m so happy you’re awake,” Ma said with a quick smile. She lifted a clipboard from her side and scanned through the list clamped on it. “We need to get you through the showers. Are you feeling up for that?”

       The woman nodded as she began to return to herself. The light was not so blinding anymore and she could make out a metal door behind it, from where Ma had come. She saw that the floor was not actually cement, either, but a kind of red tile with a rough glaze coating it into uniformity. Ma held out her hand and helped the woman to her feet, helped her through the first couple of stumbling steps, helped her through the door, shutting it behind them.

       The hall outside the door held patients lying on gurneys, tubes trailing fluids into and out of their bodies, nearly paper gowns covering them, electronic monitors in a cacophony of sinusoidal noise echoing off all the hard surfaces. Many of the patients were women, but nearly as many were men; this struck the young woman as unusual, though it wasn’t clear to her why she should have expected anything else. It wasn’t clear to her that she should have expected anything at all. She reflected on the hole in her memory and understanding of this place as she followed Ma into another room, tile with drains at even intervals on the floor and a series of stalls lining the wall. Ma stopped and turned back to the woman.

       “Take off your gown and go in. The water will start when you enter.”

       The woman did as she was told, and the chill of the tile traveled up her legs, pricking up her skin. She then realized she was already shoeless, now standing naked in this shower room. A flash of terror came over her, nearly dropping to a ball on the floor, but it passed in the next moment, as if a drug were keeping her sedate. Ma saw the fear in her eye and gave a reassuring smile, taking her gently by the hand and guiding her to a stall. As promised, the water began to fall as she stepped in, and by instinct the woman raised her hands to her head and scrubbed the drying fluid out. By tufts, her hair fell down, wet and smooth to her shoulders, dripping the warming water down her sides. She closed her eyes to enjoy the feeling.

       The water shut off, the pressure clanging through the pipes, and the chill of the room overcame the young woman again. Again her skin pricked up and a chill shook her body, but only for a moment.

       “No, no. This one won’t work,” Ma said. No one else was around but Ma, the young woman, and the echo of Ma’s voice on the tile and drains. Darkness came over the young woman as the shower room she stood in disappeared.

***

       The first thing he noticed was tubes coming from the crook of his elbow, too thick to be an IV, like a cord of cables running into his body. He didn’t like this sudden image of himself as a machine and tried to move to pull the cables out, but a kind of fog held him back and muted his movements. Almost as soon as his heart sped and stomach dropped, they returned again to their calm natural place and speed. He laid back in his gurney and took a breath; without knowing why, he remembered banging his head against a tile floor and expected his head to ache. Curiously, it didn’t. Instead, an older man in a blue surgical gown entered the room and stood by his arm. A name tag on the gown read “Pa” and a gentle smile crossed his face. At that moment, the young man noticed he was naked under the blanket that covered him.

       “How’re you feeling?” Pa said.

       “I feel okay.”

       “Any unusual sensations? These could be physical or mental.”

       “I don’t think so.” He wondered if feeling as though he’d hit his head counted, but didn’t mention it.

       “Great, I’ll get these tubes out of your arm and then we can get you over to wardrobe to get you fitted.” Pa went to work detaching the tubes from the young man’s arm, pinching the skin around the tubes and covering the hole where the tubes were with gauze and a medical wrap. “Leave this on and try not to play with it. It will likely start to itch but you can’t scratch it. We want to make sure it doesn’t get infected.” Pa flashed another smile and took a step toward the door. The young man stood from his bed on wobbly legs and followed Pa out of the room.

       The hall was all tile—floors, walls, and ceiling—and a line of fluorescent lights followed them down the hall from above. They stopped at a door and Pa opened it, gesturing for the young man to go inside. The young man did as he was told and found himself in a small room, almost a prison cell, with a small tailor’s step in the corner and a rack of black and grey suits along one wall.

       “Take your pick,” Pa said. The young man flipped through and stopped on a deep black, peaked lapels, satin trim, and he took it from the rack. “Excellent. Now put it on.” The young man dressed, covered but still barefoot in the small room.

       In a moment too fast for instinct, the young man burst forward at Pa, knocked him over into the hallway, and took off running back the way they’d come. He didn’t know why he was running and barely felt the fear and mistrust in his heart or the slapping of his feet against the tile. He ran thoughtlessly through the halls, not even knowing where he was running to, just following an unseen presence. Back at the wardrobe room, an echo could be heard:

       “This one’s no good. Terminate.”

       Darkness overcame the young man and he felt his head hit the tile floor before there was nothing.

***

       When she awoke, she jumped out of the bed, ready to fight. Beneath her feet, she felt a flat carpet and on her skin she felt simple, cotton clothes covering her body. No one was there to fight with her and she let her muscles relax against this discovered reality. She remembered falling, a scuffle with men and women wearing all white with passive faces, a strong jolt and the taste of blood. She couldn’t place the memory, or unify it into a single memory, and it faded back into the depths of her mind. Next to her bed, she noticed another with a young man in similarly simple clothes laying atop the blankets and watching her.

       “Sam,” she said and stopped. “I don’t know why I know your name.”

       “It’s okay,” he said. “I’m a bit jumbled too. You’re Dee.”

       “Where are we?”

       “It doesn’t matter. We’re leaving.”

       Sam rolled to his feet and took her hand, guiding her across the carpet and to the door. As they left, she noticed how empty the room was: two beds, a flat carpet, a shuttered window.

       “What’s through the window?” she asked as they left.

       “It doesn’t go anywhere, I checked.”

       They followed the hall, covered in tile down to a wooden door, friendly by contrast with the rest of the place. Sam opened it and led her through into blinding light and deafening noise. People in business suits shuffled around, carrying briefcases and cups of to-go coffee, everyone walking with purpose, no one appearing to be going anywhere in particular. Sam led her through the throng, another door, and onto a bus. They sat in a middle row, yet the only passengers. From the window, she could see a line forming, and the same outside a handful of other buses collected around a central terminal; the chaotic movements had spontaneously given rise to this order. A bell sounded and the lines shuffled onto their respective buses followed by a driver. With a lurch, they took off up a ramp into the sunlight and sped down the street. Buildings rose like stalagmites, knotted, organic, and glistening in the light. Skyways crossed above them, sleek and futuristic, in stark contrast to the buildings. Dee turned away from the window. None of the people in suits spoke or acknowledged one another.

       “Where are we going?” she said.

       “It doesn’t really matter. You’ll see.”

       “Is it like where we came from?”

       “No, nothing like that.”

       “How do you know where we’re going?”

       “I don’t. I don’t know.” Sam’s face fell into a grimace and the young woman took his head into her arms and held it against her shoulder. “I’m sorry.”

       “It’s okay. We’re okay, right?”

       “We’re okay.”

       “Yeah. Everything’s fine.”

       The bus stopped at a light to let a line of other buses cross in front of them. It bounced on the vibrations from its idling engine before revving up again when the light changed back.

Bus Driver,  Joyce Guariglia                           

Tim Rousseau's stories have appeared in Sledgehammer Lit, After the Pause, and The Antihumanist. His forthcoming novel is titled God Is A Tequila Worm. He works as a video editor in Brooklyn, where he lives with his wife and cat.