I rode the lonely bus, midnight stars overhead. My magic abilities and past lives came flying past my very eyes. I've been through it all, seven lives, headed towards my 8th. I know for sure that my 9th will be alluring and magical all the same.




I'm suicidal, but only on the weekdays.

Yes the X23 can be a lonely route, @Gregrethica Wallis. It's supposed to be a shortcut, skirting the edges of the Myrornas Krig and and the Semut Bertengkar, but those desolate wastes are enough to drive anyone to the brink. And then watches don't work so there's no way to see if it really saves time.

Just don't sit by Mr. Fiddlesticks.

I've been trying to use Witchfinder GPS when I'm on the Lonely Bus, which can be frustrating when it picks up witches between stops. I was on the Lonely Bus just this afternoon and the Witchfinder went crazy--it spotted a big one near the Reign of Tears and I got off at the very next stop and started running but it was already moving on and I lost it.

Misplacing your ticket while riding the Lonely Bus is a serious infraction. Suddenly there is no front of the bus. Or back of the bus. Or doors of any kind. You can walk the aisle and walk and walk and occasionally get to the accordion bellows separating one section from another, but it just goes on, and on, and on, filled with lonely bus riders of increasingly alien species while the landscape of terror rolls by outside, never-ending.

I am lucky I can still get music on my phone.

Checking the Psyhigh Student Handbook for what to do when you lose your ticket on the Lonely Bus.

PSYCHIC HIGH SCHOOL PHOTO ID STUDENT BUS PASSES

In order to promote the use of psychic public transportation, Psyhigh has teamed up with Incorporeal Systems Inc. (not affiliated in any way ever with @GROTTO G.S.M. INC.) to allow Psyhigh Students to ride the bus for free this summer.

To take advantage of this terrific program, students just present their Psychic High School Photo ID (with Holographic Consciousness Stamp®) to any psychic bus driver. The ID serves as a free bus pass, and allows students to ride anywhere along the psychic routes.

Enjoy your free travel this summer! Please familiarize yourself with the brochure "Proper Psychic Public Transportation Etiquette," available in the administration building.

And while riding, always remember:

If you see something with your third eye, say something!

Sincerely,

Big Jim
Student Activities Coordinator
Class of '99

Time moves weird on the Lonely Bus. On one hand it doesn't move at all. We'll call that the Lonely Hand. Outside, the landscape is in continual twilight. No sun rises or sets. I know this because since losing my ticket I've been unable to get off the bus, or find a door, and the bus has made no stops. It's always dark out, and it's been a long time.

Time doesn't move inside the bus either. I don't get tired, I don't get hungry, and (thankfully) I don't have to go to the bathroom. Which makes it hard to tell how long I've been here.

But there's movement. The desolate wastes roll by, the bus keeps rolling. And inside, if there was no time, how could I put one thought after another? Or one word after another? Aren't time and motion supposed to be related? We'll call that the Moving Hand.

And no I don't have my student I.D. or I could use it to get off this bus, like @Big Jim announced. I lost it a few months ago.

After somehow navigating and negotiating my way through @GROTTO G.S.M. INC.'s demoralizing log in procedure, I was able to pull up the Psyhigh Student Handbook online. Scrolling through... scrolling through... ah:

PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION

-BUS

--LONELY BUS

---TICKETS

----LOSING YOUR TICKET

-----LOOK DOWN ON THE FLOOR

------TO THE RIGHT! BY THAT GUM! SEE THAT?

Ah! A lonely ticket! Someone else must have lost theirs too.

"Did anyone lose a ticket?" (why do I ask these things?!)

Everyone on the bus turns and raises their hand.

I took the bus today, and it wasn't till I sat down that I realized... I was on the LONELY BUS!

I'm trying to save up money for a car so I don't have to ride the lonely bus.

Here's an ad for the car I want:

-----------------------------------------------------------

MEGA SIX-RUNNER KURO FANTASM WITH WITCHFINDER GPS

Feel the power of 24 cylinder, six-wheel rogue hugging action with the Kuro Fantasm.

(A dark car squeals rubber and smoke pulling out on a dark city street in the rain. Music synch is "Sacrificial Coating" by Active Decay.)

Six ultra-wide Martian Biopolymer tires keep you safely on the ground as this jet tries to take off.

(Camera mounted on the external passenger-side rear panel of the Fantasm, looking up the side of the car getting a nice shot of the tires on the two front axles. The road is speeding by.)

All the luxury you'd expect in the tomb of a pharaoh bound for the afterlife.

(Interior shot of the queen-sized Javan Rhinoceros black leather bench front seat, and the complex but elegant readouts on the dash. Steering device is visible.)

And when this happens--

(Close up on Witchfinder icon as it blinks on the dash.)

You're ready to make for the borderlands.

(Camera mounted on the front of the massive hood, looking back over the hood scoops to the tinted windshield as the car accelerates, which we can see by the streetlights on either side speeding up to a blur.)

(Music volume rises as we see the six tiers of rear running lights speeding off to a dark horizon lit with an eerie green glow.)

When it's time to refuel: we say anytime, anywhere.

(The car skids to a side-swiping stop in a clearing. Hidden doors near the trunk open and six-inch diameter metal hoses explode out, seeking the air like lampreys before diving their oar-grinding teeth into the earth. As it begins to pump, soothingly, the color and life are drained out of the surrounding bushes and trees.)

The Mega Six-Runner Kuro Fantasm with Witchfinder GPS.

Get some.

(Car is parked so you get an oblique look at how long it is. Camera is slightly elevated, catching bonfires in the distance.)

why u being so salty to witches and scaring them like that, @Cornelius Clawhammer?

tbh I bet ya wouldn't even know what to do if u ever caught one.

My mom worked part time at the broom factory and the witches she met there were some of the kindest, warmest people on earth. The Strike Witches only arrived when conditions at the factory became so terrible that there was no other alternative.

Now, when I see a guy cracking a beer on his porch cleaning his gun and listening to his Witchfinder GPS it makes me so angry because witches have become this scapegoat for all the anger and inequality in the world, and tracking and hunting them has become some kind of patriotic ritual that only serves to maintain existing power structures that keep everybody down, witches and non-witches alike.