Somnaesia

He waited at the bus stop on High Street, watching the rain-slick asphalt shimmer with the lights of passing vehicles, and he wondered, then, if this was the world as it would always be. If this was the path he'd dreamed of walking.

(No, he thought. No, of course it wasn't.)

And later, when the bus arrived, he didn't move, his gaze falling instead upon the faces of the passengers inside, his eyes following the length of the bus and then the red taillights as it pulled away. And still he stood there, motionless.

“That was the last bus," said a voice. “There's nothing else to wait for."

He turned and found a woman standing next to him, peering out from under her hood.

“Something might happen,” he said. "Something that makes everything worth while."

“Nothing is going to happen.”

“I know.”

She smiled, and there was sadness in her eyes. "I'd tell you to go out and make things happen. But I know it isn't that easy."

"No, it isn't," he agreed.

She looked at the sky.

He looked at the ground.

"But you’re not alone," she said. "It’s normal to feel this way. You’re not the only one who's lost.”

He nodded slowly and murmured, “It's so easy to forget that."

The rain stopped at last. He raised his face to the clouds and took a breath, and in that moment he could feel his heartbeat while all the world was quiet.