The corner bench slats were scuffed smooth by decades of waiting; the wood grain was worn down right where a person’s thigh would rest, leaving a slightly polished ache beneath the grime. A slow drip from the overhead sign bracket provided the only steady rhythm, tapping out tiny, predictable beats onto the wet patch on the concrete curb beside my boots. The yellowed plexiglass of the timetable display case was cool to the touch, smelling faintly of damp wool and brake dust—the particular scent signature of a transit hub in late autumn. I watched the arrivals listed inside: 2:15 PM, 2:30 PM, 2:45 PM. Everything felt perfectly ordered for this time of day, requiring only patience to fill the gap until the next expected connection arrived. It was a routine thing, sitting here and letting the light lengthen across the yellowed paintwork while waiting for someone who might or might not be coming at all. It was only when I looked back at the glass panel that the rhythm faltered. The 2:15 PM departure time now read 2:18 PM. A small, almost imperceptible shift of three minutes had occurred since my glance moments before. I blinked, assuming a trick of the late afternoon shadow or perhaps just fatigue blurring the edges of the printed ink. But when I looked again, the adjacent listing—the next service due at 2:30 PM—had also crept forward by exactly three minutes, now reading 2:27 PM. The scheduled departures were not fixed to the hour; they seemed instead to be adjusting themselves in tiny increments of time, like gravel settling into an unnatural, perfect row whenever the surrounding noise level dropped too low. I leaned back against the cold metal pole, watching the numbers subtly breathe under the plexiglass face, unsure if this was a malfunction or merely the way things were meant to wait now.
mist · curious