“I’m sorry.”
“You got on the bus in King City. It is a nonstop bus from King City to Night Vale. No turns, like you said.”
“Okay, I’m sorry.”
Diane turned toward the other passengers, hoping someone would join her confusion or plead her case. The bus had started in Night Vale. It had, right? But all of the seats were empty. No one on board but her and the driver. Not even the driver now. Mab was standing outside, sunglasses back on, smoking a clove cigarette.
Diane walked back to her seat and grabbed her suitcase. Before leaving, she knelt down and put her hand to the seat directly across the aisle from hers, where the man had been. It was cold.
She got off the bus.
She called Steve Carlsberg, who had a car. Steve was happy to take Diane to King City. He was excited to go. He complained about not having received anything from a man in a tan jacket and agreed to skip work. He would pick her up from the bus station and they would leave this very morning.
“Morning?” she said. “What time is it?”
“Eight o’clock. Good and early start. Oh, this will be fun!” Steve said. She could hear the dinging of his car. He was already on his way.
She hung up and checked the time. Her bus had left at 7:00 and had been on the road for at least six hours. It was 8:03 A.M.
Mab pinched out her cigarette and swallowed it. She climbed back into her bus, pulled the doors shut, and drove away.
Diane waited. She bought a coffee and a banana in the station and waited. She bought another coffee and waited. She stared at the arrival and departure screens and waited. She checked the time and waited. It was 9:34.
She called Steve.
“Where are you? Is everything okay?”
“What do you mean, Diane?”
“I thought you were coming to pick me up and we were going to drive to King City.”
“Drive to King City? Gosh, I’d love to. That sounds so exciting. When did you want to go?”
“As soon as you can.”
“Listen, I’ll take the rest of the day off. Where are you?”
“I’m at the bus station downtown.”
“Okie doke!”
Diane waited. 11:15 A.M.
“Steve! Where are you?”
“Work. Why? What’s up?”
Diane called a cab and asked the driver to take her to the airport.
Yesterday, she had called her insurance company. She was hoping she could get a replacement car to drive to King City.
The insurance company had asked her where her car was.
“I don’t know.”
“If you do not know where your current car is, how can we replace it?”
“It was stolen.”
“So you don’t see your car right now?”
“No.”
“If you cannot see a thing, how can you be sure it exists at all? Are you familiar with Schrödinger’s c—”
Diane had hung up and called back, hoping for a different agent.
“You did not answer our question.” There had been only one ring, and the voice had immediately started in. “We cannot replace a vehicle that does not exist.”
“You have my VIN number and all of the pertinent information in your system.”
“This? This is just ones and zeros. This is just lights flashing various colors and shapes. There is nothing physical or real about data. Here. I just changed your middle name to five f’s in a row. ‘Diane Fffff Crayton.’ It says right here on my screen: ‘Diane Fffff Crayton.’ Do you accept that is your name because it is in our quote system?”
“No.”
“No, you do not. Just as we would not accept that a vehicle exists simply because there is a number here in my quote sys——”
“Shut up and listen!” She had shouted this. She wasn’t sure she had ever shouted on the phone before. “My son is missing. My car is missing. I need to find him, and I need a car to do that. I have no time for your absurd logic.”
“Absurd logic is an oxymoron.”
“Absurd logic!” she had screamed into the phone.
“Hissssssssssssssss!” the representative had replied.
“You are an insurance company. I pay you to replace or repair my vehicle, or compensate me in the event that something happens to my vehicle. Something has happened to my vehicle.”
No response.
“I need a car because I need my son. Can you understand me? Can you sympathize here? Just a small amount of compassion to get this done?”
Another long silence.
“Are you—” she had said.
“Yes. We’re still here.”
“Have you—”
“Quiet, Diane. We heard you. We are sorry. Give us a moment. This is difficult for us. Hearing that a customer has a missing child hurts us deeply. Please give us some space.”
Diane had held back another eruption. Of the stages of grief, Diane had already gone through denial, sadness, and despair. Now she had been on the verge of the final step, vengeance.
The voice on the other end, clearly crying, had said: “We’ll see what we can do. It will take no more than two weeks.”
“Two weeks.”
“This is hard on us, too,” the representative had sobbed. Diane had hung up.
The cab pulled up to the airport. Night Vale Airport is not big. Most of the planes are propeller planes, private planes, secret military drones, and government planes that are used to make chemtrails, but she found a commuter airline to fly her from Night Vale to King City. She was one of four people on board the twenty-seat plane.
She had never flown before, having never left Night Vale. She wasn’t sure whether she was a nervous flier or not, but the plane certainly felt small and fragile. It took off with a whirring shudder, and she felt dizzy as it rose through the clouds. She leaned her head against the window, but the rough ride caused her to bump her head against the hard plastic, making it impossible to sleep, so she watched the red flatness of the desert pass slowly below them. She looked out to the horizon, wondering if she could ever believe in mountains again having seen this flatness from above, and whether anyone would ever learn what clouds were made of. It was probably best we never know.
She glanced about at her fellow travelers, finding it interesting that they were all wearing blue earphones and horn-rimmed glasses. They were most likely part of a vague, yet menacing government agency. Diane wasn’t sure if they were following her or the pilot or what, but they looked bored and tired.
After a two-hour flight, the plane touched down. It had been a long and expensive day, and she had only enough money for a few more cab rides in King City.
As the plane taxied to the gate, which was simply a wood stepladder on the tarmac near the terminal, Diane watched the world scroll from right to left across her window. Behind the airport, she could see a small city watched over by a distant Brown Stone Spire.
“Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached our final destination of Night Vale. Please remain seated until we come to a complete stop and the captain turns on the Free Will sign.”
Diane punched the window, crying, “No. No!” her voice cracking and eyes watering. She couldn’t help it. She turned to look around the cabin, conscious of the scene she was causing. There were twelve other passengers on the plane. They all wore baseball caps and knit shirts. They were sitting together in the back rows, not showing any awareness at all of her outburst.
“Thank you for flying with us,” said the pilot, as Diane dragged her suitcase off the plane. She put down the suitcase and sat on it, right there on the tarmac, having no idea at all what she should do next.