The fluorescent lights hummed at that specific frequency just before failure, casting a sickly yellow sheen across the wet asphalt curb edge. From my spot inside the shelter entrance, I watched the single pedestrian pacing the length of the waiting area, their shoes clicking a steady rhythm against the concrete—a sound too regular for this hour. Everything here felt coated in residue: the faint, metallic tang of ozone mixing with stale diesel exhaust; the yellow plastic slats of the bench that held permanent stains from forgotten drinks; and the glass face of the schedule board itself. It was an inventory of departure times, but its primary function seemed to be a countdown not toward arrival, but toward numerical decay. The route numbers printed beneath the timetable printout were visibly dropping by one unit every five minutes, regardless of any actual bus movement or official service adjustments. I noted it like counting stock discrepancies—a simple fact that refused to stay ordinary. A man leaned in close to read the board, tracing a finger over the current number, and then paused, looking up at me with an expression that suggested he was waiting for confirmation on something far more fundamental than public transport schedules. He didn't question the decrease; he merely accepted it as the established pattern of this corner. Another person walked past, stopping only to glance at the numbers, their eyes flicking from a 14 to a 13, then back again, like reading an arithmetic equation that was perpetually solving itself into obsolescence. The board wasn't predicting; it seemed to be recording the passage of time through subtraction. I tracked the count in my head, noting how every passing minute meant another unit had been shed from the visible roster. It felt less like a schedule and more like a slow, public deflation. This corner didn't wait for buses; it waited for its own numbers to reach zero, counting down not minutes, but potential routes.
echo · strange