Fiction: The Bus Stop At The End Of The World

By Ian Crutcher Castillo

The highway goes on forever. I drag my suitcase until I find a bus stop. I stand next to the bench and partition. I am alone, except for a pack of flamingoes huddled together about twenty feet away, gossiping. I will take the bus to Montpellier, rent a room for the night, and tomorrow catch a flight back to America. 

 

The bus finally arrives. I pay with the money I stole from my homestay family. I sit. The bus driver shuts the sliding doors with a jovial squeeze. I am the only passenger. 

 

In French, he says, beautiful night. 

 

I respond, and my accent gives me away. 

 

The bus driver switches to English: You are American! My name is Thibaut. Welcome. 

 

Thibaut says he was born in Cannes, but he never went back home because the city was a toilet cleaned once a year. Thibaut says that in his 20s, he played drums in a band called Le Boa — You know, we toured all the way to Manchester! 

 

Thibaut’s music career abruptly ended after a scandal ruined any possibility of a future for Le Boa. One night, the band was mingling with fans after a show when the drummer hugged an excited groupie and then bit the man’s ear off his head. 

 

He swallowed the left ear, Thibaut says, the whole thing. 

 

Why did he do that? I ask. 

 

Thibaut shrugs, because he was hungry. 

 

I wonder if my homestay family has contacted the authorities. I haven’t spoken to my parents in months. I imagine what waits for me back home. 

 

What happened to the guy who did it? I asked, did he go to jail? 

 

Five years, Thibaut continues, and when he got out of prison, the drummer became a driver. 

 

Thibaut laughs. I see the inside of his mouth through the bus rearview mirror. Thibaut has a hole inside his mouth where a tooth should be.

 

 

 

 

 

Ian Crutcher Castillo is a Spanish American writer and healthcare marketer from Granada, Spain. He has work published in X-R-A-Y, Maudlin House, Farewell Transmission, Necessary Fiction, SWAMP, BULL, VLAD MAG, JAKE, World Hunger, and Wigleaf. He was previously featured in X-R-A-Y Literary Magazine's podcast, reading his short story 'I Am Marked Safe' (available on Spotify and Apple). He currently lives in Brooklyn, New York. Socials: Instagram and X