The Everlasting Two Minutes

This is my initial entry for The Vocal+ Fiction Awards .

The queue for the bus at the Galleries was long , but it was the only bus I could get back home with. It was eight miles so walking wasn’t an option and I don’t drive now.

I looked at my watch , it was 5:36 , and looked at the electric sign board and it said the X1 was due in two minutes.

The queue was growing behind me, and there was nowhere to go or anything to do and it was only two minutes I had to wait.

It is strange when you are waiting for a bus or train how time often seems to grind to a halt, it is the same when you are at work , it is almost like the clock stops.

I looked at my watch , 5:36 , looked at the sign board , the X1 would be two minutes , it was like time had stopped. I was wondering if my watch had stopped (well actually it was my phone I was checking) but didn't want to leave the queue for fear of losing my place. I could not see another clock or time display , though I knew there were ones in the adjoining shopping centre and supermarket.

5:36 , the X1 will be two minutes

I was starting to get a little perturbed. Surely two minutes had passed , it felt like it , but my phone and the electric sign said otherwise. The people in the queue seemed to be Ok chatting , looking at their phones , reading papers and just waiting like I was.

I stayed where I was . We were waiting for a bus and we didn;t want to wait another hour for the next one . It was dark outside and the wind was blowing although it was actually quite warm and seemed to be getting warmer for some reason.

The lights flickered and then came back on , something was happening , but the bus wasn’t here and my phone said 5:36 and the electric sign said the X1 will be here in 2 minutes.

No one else looked disturbed , so it was only me who was feeling it , or was it everyone and everyone was too scared to admit that they thought that the wheels of time had ground to a juddering halt. How do you say that to someone you don’t know and who is just in a bus queue with you. They would probably think you were at least a tiny bit disturbed.

But we were waiting. When I started it was twilight outside, it was now pitch black, but the bus still wasn’t here and my phone still said 5:36 and the electric sign still said the X1 will be here in 2 minutes.

Something was wrong.

But what?

I thought I felt the building shudder slightly but no one reacted , no one moved , they still waited . I tapped the shoulder of the man in front of me and asked him for the time. There was no movement , no reaction.

I tried to turn to ask the person behind me and suddenly I was unable to move, I was now very frightened. I shouted :

“Can somebody tell me the time?”

No one moved , no one answered

It was getting hotter , I could smell brimstone, or what I thought brimstone would smell like

Then the back wall collapsed, opening a fiery red tunnel

The line started to move slowly and I was moving along with it.

The realisation set in , time had stopped for everyone at 5:36 and we were not waiting for a bus, we were condemned to eternal hell fire