It is night. An eerily quiet, cold and chilly night. Let alone humans, on the streets, there isn’t even a stray dog to be seen. The roads are deserted and empty. 

Nothing stirs or moves for as far as the eye can see. Behemoth buildings, like demons, stand by the road keeping vigil. Their lights are switched off, their eyes shut.  

There’s a light glowing in a building far away, but gradually it disappears. I feel lonelier than ever. In the dead of that night, I am standing like a deranged man at the bus stop, waiting for the last bus to arrive.  

What did I say? Deranged! Right. Deranged like a madman. Because at a time like this you seriously begin to question your sanity. 

See for yourself — even with coat buttons fastened, the biting cold rushes inside through the layers of fabric right down to the bone. Everything is freezing. The cold seeps in like someone’s fashioned a wet mud silo, stuck you deep inside the middle, and poured more cold mud around you. While everyone else is sensibly asleep under fluffy quilts in warm beds, and a man waits alone at the bus stop, eyes feverishly scanning the road for the last bus, it’s sheer madness. Isn’t it?  

At least, that’s what it feels like for someone like me, waiting alone. 

When the world has come to a halt, when there’s not a sound anywhere, when you feel the frigid, pitch-black night silently shuffling ahead, you can’t trust your common sense. At times you can’t discern where you are, what you’re doing or whether you’re doing the right thing at all.  

At least, that’s what happens to me. 

I’ve been standing here for a long time now. The buses have almost stopped plying and the one I’m waiting for is perhaps the last one for the day. I absolutely must get on it or else, I wonder, where am I going to spend the night in this dreadful cold? 

You must be wondering what I’m doing so late out on the road. But there’s no point talking about it. You neither know where I’ve come from, nor are you ever going to go there. So where I’m coming from and where I’m going is honestly none of your business. I’m just standing here alone in the biting cold, hands tucked into my pockets, waiting for the last bus. That’s all there is to it. 

The moon rises in the sky. 

You wouldn’t understand what’s so special about it. You wouldn’t care for the moon rising if you’re sitting comfortably inside your brightly lit home reading this story, would you? But for someone like me, shivering alone in the cold standing on a deserted road, there’s something strange about it. Not the moon for company—all that looks nice only in poetry. On the contrary, the moonlight can be scary if you’re in a situation like me. I’ve heard the moonlight messes with people’s heads. They hallucinate, behave as if they’re in a trance, and don’t seem like their usual selves. 

See for yourself—moonlight strikes the dark and so many shadows emerge, shifting here and there along with the wind. The shrubs growing along building fences cast shadows on the walls. If you look closely, you’ll spot different shapes. Shadows like camels, rabbits, open jawed barking dogs, that post box shadow beside it, looking like a squat security guard and the fence rods casting elongated shadows onto the walls like prison bars! Exactly like a real jail! A jail…or a mental asylum. Of course, a mental asylum needs a security guard. There’s no risk of patients from other facilities running away, is there now? But a mental asylum…I  mean…who in their right minds wants to live there? 

What do you think? Should madmen be locked up like this, or left loose? 

I think it’s better to leave them loose, so the incarceration won’t further mess with their heads. 

This is from a mental patient’s point of view, of course. But I doubt you’ll agree with me. Not everyone thinks like a mental patient. For their own safety they all want to keep madmen locked up, don’t they? 

Forget it. This is pure madness. After all, it’s difficult to figure out what twisted thoughts go through someone’s mind when they’re standing alone at a bus-stop on a deserted road. 

Eventually a double decker bus approaches. 

It moves slowly, taking its own sweet time. The driver doesn’t seem to be in a hurry. The last bus usually arrives at great speed, sounding its horn, but this one is practically crawling. Or maybe I’m the one imagining things. Who knows? The bus doesn’t screech to a halt. Today it is running so slowly that I quickly jump in. There are many passengers already inside.

The conductor stands at the door. He stares at me but doesn’t say anything. How strange. Wonder what that was all about. I reckon he wasn’t expecting anyone at the stop; and maybe he didn’t like me jumping in like that. As if I care! I shrug my shoulders and make my way to an empty seat at the back. The bus is swaying, and I hold onto the edge of the seats to balance myself. 

And I realize all the other passengers are turning around and staring at me like I’m some outcast. I don’t understand why. It’s slightly unsettling, like they’re all going to catch a hold of me and take me somewhere and imprison me. I feel like jumping out of the bus and fleeing for my life. 

I do nothing of that sort.  

The conductor comes up to me. I find even that scary, as if he’s not like me, that there’s a chasm of difference between us. 

He asks, “Where you coming from?” 

I feel the other passengers’ eyes on me. 

He asks again, “Hey, where you coming from?” 

I tell him where I got on. He looks at the other passengers and a wave of mild laughter erupts. 

Idiots! I told him the name of the stop I boarded the bus from. Now what’s so funny about that? 

“Where you going?” he asks in a hoarse voice. I tell him. 

“You won’t get off midway, will you?” he sneers. Everyone laughs heartily. 

The mocking tone enrages me. But I don’t protest because everyone else is very apparently on his side. 

By now the bus has picked up some speed. At least it’s not idling like before. 

A man comes and sits next to me. I notice him staring at me from head to toe. He seems slightly embarrassed when I catch him looking, probably a bit scared. I wonder what’s so scary about me. I keep staring back at him. To break the tension in the air he grins and asks, “So?  What’s up?”

I’m a bit of a recluse, meaning I usually keep to myself. Especially in an unknown place I don’t like making small talk and getting acquainted with random people. I mean, it’s not like I’ll be rude on purpose to anyone who comes up and talks to me by  themselves. So I just smile weakly and say, “All okay.” 

After some time, he breaks the silence. “It’s really cold today, isn’t it?” “I know!” I say, “Freezing,” and tuck my hands into my armpits to try and keep them warm. I wonder if he finds this rude. But he grows quiet, that’s for sure. 

The bus has picked up speed by now and the cold wind rushes in through the windows. It gets even colder. The man sitting next to me shuts the windowpane closed. I help him with it. As soon as we close the window, the cold is under control. 

The passengers quickly shut all the windows, as if they were all waiting for someone to take the initiative. The bus is like a chilled glass case now. 

My fellow passenger starts chatting with me again. In a low voice he conspiratorially asks, “Heard about today’s special news?” 

“What’s that?” 

“Apparently some madmen have escaped from a mental hospital!” 

Special? I don’t see anything special about it. 

For a few moments he gauges my reaction and then says, “Don’t you think it’s serious?” 

“Of course. I sure do,” I say, steering the conversation towards him. I have started doubting his sanity by now. 

“Aaho, and it seems these madmen were too much. Each one of them looks very ordinary at first glance but actually…” 

“Actually what?” 

“….are killers! Vengeful, apeshit crazy killers who’ll kill anyone coming in their way!”

He keeps talking. Telling me how the madmen cleverly got out, how they strangled and killed the security guard, how they stole his dagger and escaped the building, how one fellow among them is particularly skilled, how he slits throats cleanly from ear to ear—he tells me all of this.  I keep saying “hoon” in response. There’s nothing much to it—we read such news in the papers everyday; what’s so special about it? Anyone locked up like this would naturally want to escape. 

The bus is hurtling forward at high speed as if it has sprouted wings. The windows are shut and it is dark, so I cannot see anything outside.  

“I mean, we’re under the impression that madmen are conventionally mad—what would they of all people understand? But it’s not like that—mental patients also know a lot of things. Just that they’re a little crazy about certain things.” 

“Yes, that’s because experts say so. Otherwise, madmen always justify their own behaviour.” 

“Meaning?” The man’s eyes twinkle. Who knows why, but he suddenly laughs; and that ticks me off. I am unreasonably irritated with him sitting beside me and talking about mental patients. I’m desperately waiting for my stop so I can get off. Where has this bus come? I squint out of the window but cannot see anything. 

“….slit throats expertly, it seems! Not one, but two men! With a dagger! No joke!” 

At this point I lose my patience. I look around. There aren’t any empty seats. I get up and make my way to the upper deck. 

The same glances. Mocking stares that conceal laughter. 

“Where do you think you’re going? Sit down, stop’s not come yet.” the conductor growls. “Going to the upper deck,” I plead. 

“Achcha—go, go on,” he gestures with his hands. “Go to the upper deck, you won’t jump out and run away, will you?” 

I don’t understand what he is getting at. Mild laughter follows. 

I bite my lip. 

Surprisingly the upper deck is empty, save for two people sitting at window seats. It is peaceful here. At least there is no laughing, no stares, no chattering passengers, no rude conductor…

I take a window seat and look out at the full moon. Both the passengers sit comfortably. Now the bus has picked up so much speed that an accident seems inevitable.  

The man in front of me has gone to sleep, I think. His head bobs. 

I look out once again. The full moon seems to be moving along with the bus. I keep staring at the man, at his bobbing head. It makes me restless. 

The silence is creeping me out. 

Suddenly the man’s head falls off his neck and hits the floor. 

I shriek and rush towards the other man, shaking him by the shoulders, “look…LOOK OVER  THERE!” His head falls off with the sheer force of my shaking.  

I yell and shout in terror. Two bodies with slit throats, heads placed on dead bodies, crimson blood everywhere, fresh, steaming corpses—I cannot stop shrieking. 

I bolt down the stairs and come towards the conductor, still shrieking. “What the hell is this?  W-w-who are those two?” 

“They—t-t-they’re the actual driver and conductor of this bus,” says the conductor, laughing wickedly, eyes twinkling. 

“B-but he’s been killed! Something’s going on….this is utter madness!” 

“We are madmen. All of us,” the conductor calmly takes out a Rampuri dagger from his leather bag and unsheaths it. “But them? They were sane, sensible men….the two of them. And you’ll be the third.” 

The dagger blade flashes.   

Everyone mills around me, laughing loudly. 

The bus is hurtling forward at an eye-popping speed. Who knows where to?