It looked no different from any other day. Barely ten people. The old lady was there in her usual seat. The one behind the driver. He had never seen her get up. Or down. It was as if she was a part of the bus. A somewhat worn out mannequin someone had forgotten to take … Continue reading Earthrise, By Arijit Ghoshal
Last Sight, By Squid McFinnigan
'Why have all prison transports such lousy suspensions?' Jerry thought to himself, as the retro-fitted school bus bounced him around like a bucking bronco. They hadn't even bothered to take the faded, No 26, off the side. He knew the world looked at him as a third-class entity, or even fourth, if there was such … Continue reading Last Sight, By Squid McFinnigan
Cheers to the Passengers of May
Cheers to the passengers and travelers of May! As this is a blog of words, here are some beautiful words for the travelers out there.
An Unlikely Crew (Part Two), By Nate Miller
Check out part one of Nate Millers story at https://thenumber26.net/2019/03/27/an-unlikely-crew-part-1-by-nate-miller/ The fuselage shuddered and shook as the wind and rain slammed against it, forcing a side-to-side movement that troubled even the most iron-clad of stomachs.The Twenty-Six dipped in and out of the clouds as it navigated the storm. Within, stuck in an aisle seat and … Continue reading An Unlikely Crew (Part Two), By Nate Miller
City Route Twenty-Six, By David Blankenship
The bus pushed air to the curb, cups and napkins from the nearby Burger King swirled in disturbed air. The oversized tires gripped the asphalt and held. The air brakes groaned and motion stopped. Hydraulic arms pushed aside the folding doors and waited. A lone man, small, dressed in a gray and black splattered suit, … Continue reading City Route Twenty-Six, By David Blankenship
Through the Handprint in the Steam
One sip of this towns' storm-water runoff would leave you drunk, stoned, high, and diseased for the rest of your life.
The Gift, By Matthew John Palace
It was a stormy night, and heavy rain came along with the rumble, the number 26 bus was late as usual, and after having the day I had I didn’t seem to give a damn. I had just been fired from my job. As the leafless tree above the bus stop offered no cover for the downpour that was ensuing, I thought a little water won’t hurt. I didn’t mind, I needed to be cleansed. The rain offered a cool, clean feel that beaded off my bald head, I felt at peace at that moment, the first time in a while.
Driver, By Michael Murdoch
I think the driver of the 26 is an alien, because it's definitely not human. I don't like riding that bus line but it's the cheapest way, and also the only way. Plus, this man goes where the coke flows. By which I mean Dave, he lives way out, another 25 minutes walk after I … Continue reading Driver, By Michael Murdoch
The Journey, by Hermione Laake
The Journey: a means of travelling from one place to another: a life: metaphoric; physical; psychological…. Where will it end? “Tickets please.” When was it that you learnt to blame your parents for everything? In your weaker moments? When was it that you learnt that you could wipe out your memory with alcohol, or that … Continue reading The Journey, by Hermione Laake
My Ride on the 26, by Mat Woolfenden
They are all standing around the bus stop – and are like children. There is the waitress, early fifties, cute in her lipsticks, and the black pinny spoiled only by long black trousers. She ignores me, she understands how I am a top predator of the top deck. She couldn’t trust herself upstairs with me in the eye-line.
The Night Bus
We’re different from the boisterous crowds of the weekends. The loud drunks commuting between parties, or the twitching addicts rocking and scratching at their skin, the entangled limbs of one night lovers clawing at each and wrapping around one another in the back. No, we’re the night bus sleepers, a different breed entirely.
Cheers to the Passengers of April
To the passed covered in dust, those on the curb soaking wet, and those in the fast lane driving through puddles. Cheers to the passengers aboard The Number 26
The Traveling Encyclopedia Salesman, The Escape
“Don’t be concerned madam” I tell her while shoveling the coins mixed with tiny fragments of glass off the stairs and into my coat pockets. An honest days work for an honest days pay.
The Traveling Encyclopedia Salesman, Clutching at Odds
Huckleberry Finn floated by St. Louis on his little wooden raft, and nothing bad, or good, or anything in particular happened to him there, besides him just floating by. I hope I just float by and nothing happens to me too, because anytime anything does happen to me it’s almost always the wrong thing.
Blain and Joe
“Nowadays happiness it seems comes with a receipt, sanity comes in a bottle, and beauty comes from the leather around your feet.”
When Life Gives You Greg, by Patrick Simons
In twenty-six slashes of an angry pen, I enact my bloodthirsty revenge. An indigo insolence five thousand and twenty-six years in the making, a cuneiform callback as old as anger and ink and implements. A brilliant crescendo of rage, all staccato and forte and I’m the conductor, and for twenty-six seconds I feel strong, and there, just there on the seat, the culmination cut in the cream:
Message In The 26th Bottle
Short days ago we were together, we watched sunsets glow, felt the Dawn. We lived and were loved by each other, but now I am saddened that in the past few months I have nearly completely forgotten your face. I wish I had dedicated every minuscule feature better to memory, but as the days past, and my mind was slowly swallowed by madness like a droplet in a pit of slime, I remember less and less of my previous self- my previous life. The slight curvature of your nose, the lift in your brow, the tiny wrinkles on the ends of your lips- the wrinkles from a lifetime of laughter. Such tiny insignificant features which now have taken on such profound and sacred meaning to me, suddenly it has become so vitally essential to remember everything about you. The exact colour tone of your hair, the exact angle of your jaw. Why is it that faces, being so easily recognized, so easily pulled up from our past, are yet so easily forgotten in our minds in their absence.
The Number 26 