Empty (I’m Not in the Picture): Five Sentence Fiction

Some of us are not aware of our surroundings – until there are no more surroundings…

Lillie McFerrin posts a “Five Sentence Fiction” prompt.
This week it is: Empty

Pic from Lillie McFerrin

Empty (I’m Not in the Picture)

What you don’t see is me in the picture – and I’m sorry to say you never will

I’m actually sitting in the seat in front of all these empty benches, and I’ve looked around only to see nobody is there anymore.

I had been sitting facing forward with my ear buds in, listening to music, minding my own business, eyes closed, and, as I often am, in my usual dream state.

Then I’m thinking I hear something like, “Do you have a date?”, and I’m thinking that that’s strange, and so I start to look around to figure out who might have said it, and I notice there are no passengers anymore which I think is really strange, and then I turn around and see the front door of the bus is open, and I notice the driver is leaping out of the bus, and then I look through the front windshield and realize that we’re about to go over a cliff, except there is no we, it’s only me.

And then it crosses my mind that no one has asked me if I have a date, and the word that I missed was:

       EVACUATE

and then I shrug my shoulders thinking that I might as well have heard, “It’s too late”, as I turn up the music and go flying through the air.

Randy Mazie

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