Autumn – cold, grey. Wind blew through the fields outside the village, scattered the remains of the harvest, played with the skirt of the girl waiting at the bus stop.
The bus stop – a temple of adolescent illusions, a place for teenagers to dream, dream of the things they've always seen but never felt, dream of the joy they project onto each other, dream of twisted love, dream of not having to wait for the bus. Sayaka often read the profanities on the walls, manifested from the longing of the waiting. Some of them were certainly addressed to her.
Spat out things littered the ground, chewing gum, cigarettes. The garbage can was overflowing; there was no one to empty it, and no one stayed long enough to care. Half eaten junk food spilled out of the can, half read magazines had their pages forced open by the wind. None of this stained the place where Sayaka stood.
An exhaust rattled on the horizon. She had long recognised the driver. Sayaka knew her as Kyoko, other people from the village had less flattering names for her. Sayaka knew that Kyoko's father recently took over as the priest; she knew that the priests daughter sometimes tended to the graveyard patches. Now she was a lone rider on an old moped. She had an aura of melancholy to her, all by herself on the long road, a bit of sadness, a bit James Dean.
Kyoko stopped at the bus stop. She looked Sayaka in the eyes, almost. Her voice did not waver like her eyes.
"Yo, Sayaka. You want a ride on my bike?"
Trees grow often alongside country roads, an honour brigade to progress, a mocking brigade to the very thing that took their turf. Their shadows stood still, both the silent watchers and the wind holding their breath in anticipation of Sayaka's reply. But the one had just thought of how most her friends didn't like that girl. Surely she had to be weird, surely she had to be crazy, a father like that, beliefs like that, practices like that ... Sayaka had never made more conversation with her than today. Why start now? She said:
"Thanks, but I think I'm gonna wait for the bus."
The next day. The encounter forgotten. Mind clear as the sky. Sayaka is joking around with Madoka, having sweets at the cafe, when she overhears someone at the counter saying:
"You heard already? That girl, Kyoko, drove herself to death yesterday."
Sayaka's heart stops. She breaks down, eyes empty, mouth full, choking on her laughter. Her mind races. It's not real, you heard wrong, they heard it wrong – her thoughts break down, silenced by the heavy sound of church bells that guide the souls of the deceased to eternity and her back to the bus stop.
She goes every day to the bus shelter, stands, waits. Dirt stains her shoes, rain sogs her clothes, wind whips in her face. She always stares into the distance, her eyes glassy, her thoughts somber, just as her life has become. She waits for a sound on the horizon, for her second chance – of course she would get a second chance, she had to get a second chance – If Kyouko would ask her again – If that would happen one more time – She would say:
"Yes, let's go, escape from here together."
And if it was her last ride even more so.