WEBVTT 1 00:00:05.200 --> 00:00:08.119 Hollo. I'm walking stories all the time. The lad you 2 00:00:08.160 --> 00:00:11.720 are here, Let's get into it. It's a dreary Thursday morning, 3 00:00:11.759 --> 00:00:13.679 later than I'd planned, but earlier than I'd like for 4 00:00:13.720 --> 00:00:16.920 any real reason. The clouds have settled, gray and motionless 5 00:00:16.920 --> 00:00:19.399 over the city, turning the bustyp hooorst wide glasses sword 6 00:00:19.440 --> 00:00:21.719 into a passable mirror of the sort that flattens everything 7 00:00:21.719 --> 00:00:23.920 into a pale sequence of gestures, a quick hun shake, 8 00:00:23.960 --> 00:00:26.760 a raised coffee cup, the shuffle of heavy shoes. I 9 00:00:26.839 --> 00:00:29.000 walk into the familiar scene like I have three times 10 00:00:29.000 --> 00:00:31.600 a week since retirement, the shield of routine wrapped comfortably 11 00:00:31.679 --> 00:00:33.840 around me. There are errands on my mind. To pick 12 00:00:33.920 --> 00:00:36.200 up brown rice from Lee's Market, try that new bakery, 13 00:00:36.280 --> 00:00:38.560 maybe wander through the end of Plant's ale on ten Street. 14 00:00:38.560 --> 00:00:41.679 If the rain heaps, threatening, but underneath it unbidden, as 15 00:00:41.679 --> 00:00:44.479 it so often, as is the mental arithmetic. The curiosity 16 00:00:44.520 --> 00:00:46.840 broid into me by a lifetime of teaching equations to 17 00:00:46.880 --> 00:00:49.240 teenagers who rarely wanted to see how beautiful a number 18 00:00:49.280 --> 00:00:52.560 could be. I like keeping track, not just because mathematics 19 00:00:52.600 --> 00:00:54.920 made a world I could measure, but because noticing patterns 20 00:00:54.960 --> 00:00:56.799 is how I know I'm not ready to fade quietly 21 00:00:56.799 --> 00:00:59.560 into the background. I cut street lights as I walk, 22 00:01:00.280 --> 00:01:03.159 I align my breadth of paces. I watch schedules the 23 00:01:03.200 --> 00:01:06.319 way some people watch hup operas. To day, I arrived 24 00:01:06.359 --> 00:01:09.640 deliberately early. I've never been a rebel. My defiance is 25 00:01:09.640 --> 00:01:12.120 the subtle type of silent wager against a lay divoorder 26 00:01:12.120 --> 00:01:15.040 of things. Thirty two minutes ahead of the soonest busom 27 00:01:15.079 --> 00:01:17.680 the digital display, my coat clinging with the memory of drizzle. 28 00:01:17.719 --> 00:01:19.560 I step into the main hall and glance down the 29 00:01:19.599 --> 00:01:22.680 line of platforms, and again, like every day, at every 30 00:01:22.680 --> 00:01:25.640 conceivable hour, there is bus forty seven wheel square to 31 00:01:25.680 --> 00:01:28.000 the cop doors open, the faint mechanical hum just barely 32 00:01:28.000 --> 00:01:30.959 shaking the steel bench beside the stop. It sits there, 33 00:01:31.040 --> 00:01:33.599 slightly separated from the more haphazardly part twenty two. In 34 00:01:33.599 --> 00:01:36.040 the Lumbering fifteen, It's blue and ivory paint. All was 35 00:01:36.040 --> 00:01:39.239 shining as though freshly scrout its hoallyd sun unwavering forty 36 00:01:39.239 --> 00:01:42.200 seven east loop. The driver, a man with sharp genial 37 00:01:42.239 --> 00:01:44.680 features and a red scarf tied beneath his collar, gives 38 00:01:44.719 --> 00:01:46.519 me a nod as if I'm still the only person 39 00:01:46.560 --> 00:01:49.599 he's waiting for I almost consider confronting him about it, 40 00:01:49.640 --> 00:01:52.480 asking if he's always here or if he's just exceptionally early, 41 00:01:52.519 --> 00:01:55.159 out of professional pride. But that's not how we do 42 00:01:55.239 --> 00:01:59.000 things in this city. Politeness first, confrontation last, and every 43 00:01:59.000 --> 00:02:01.959 private oddity tucked away for later perusal behind crossward puzzles 44 00:02:02.040 --> 00:02:05.040 or the slow percolation of bridge hands. So I step 45 00:02:05.120 --> 00:02:08.639 up morning, I say, always nice to find a bus 46 00:02:08.680 --> 00:02:12.960 ready and waiting. His smile is pleasant, unremarkable. Weien to please, 47 00:02:13.159 --> 00:02:15.479 he replies, tilting his head as if to acknowledge a joke. 48 00:02:15.520 --> 00:02:18.599 Only I know is there behind me. Someone coughs faintly 49 00:02:18.639 --> 00:02:20.560 to heavy set woman who brings her own thermos of 50 00:02:20.599 --> 00:02:24.039 soup most days. Across the aisle, Avery is already in 51 00:02:24.080 --> 00:02:26.560 a seat by the window. Erefunds in, absorbed in a 52 00:02:26.599 --> 00:02:30.400 spine broken paperback. Two high school kids slutch nearby, scrolling 53 00:02:30.439 --> 00:02:33.520 through their phones, and in the back near the emergency 54 00:02:33.520 --> 00:02:35.919 exit sits Miss s Rinfield, who once told me that 55 00:02:36.000 --> 00:02:38.479 retirement is just living without an alarm clock and calling 56 00:02:38.479 --> 00:02:41.879 at wisdom. The bus feels warm, settled, expectant, as if 57 00:02:41.879 --> 00:02:44.639 whatever I do, wherever I go, it has arranged itself 58 00:02:44.639 --> 00:02:48.879 in anticipation, a patent, camouflushed and routine. And yet how 59 00:02:48.879 --> 00:02:50.879 can it be that Bus forty seven is always here, 60 00:02:50.960 --> 00:02:53.719 always waiting, no matter when or how I arrive. I 61 00:02:53.879 --> 00:02:56.199 let that question sit for the moment, tucked beneath the 62 00:02:56.199 --> 00:02:59.639 surface comfort of well oiled machinery. Sunday, I suspect I'll 63 00:02:59.680 --> 00:03:01.960 have to decide whether this is kindness from the universe 64 00:03:02.159 --> 00:03:05.360 or something far more peculiar. My world, since retirement, has 65 00:03:05.400 --> 00:03:07.960 become a web of circles within circles. Each abbied a 66 00:03:07.960 --> 00:03:10.599 line drawn on o'clock, my morning walk past eight town homes, 67 00:03:10.680 --> 00:03:12.800 the precise moment a step into Pacific Deli for a 68 00:03:12.800 --> 00:03:15.680 cinemamall on tuesdays, they echoed my own foots, expansing off 69 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:18.840 the deepest tile at an almost algorithic interval. The city 70 00:03:18.879 --> 00:03:21.400 itself is a puzzle box of grids and grids traceable 71 00:03:21.439 --> 00:03:24.280 on any map. Each day I passed the same faces, 72 00:03:24.319 --> 00:03:26.919 sliding past an analog income in sharp suits from one direction, 73 00:03:27.039 --> 00:03:30.599 tire grocers from another. The depot, battered but sturdy, is 74 00:03:30.599 --> 00:03:34.000 the kernel of all these intersecting routines, shape by utility 75 00:03:34.120 --> 00:03:36.400 rather than beauty. Though someone had a fleeting fancy with 76 00:03:36.439 --> 00:03:38.800 curved metal beans. Back in the seventies, the place business 77 00:03:38.800 --> 00:03:41.719 were the frayed energy of a thousand late appointments, helpful commutes, 78 00:03:41.800 --> 00:03:45.280 and cheerful bickering over coffee. The benches shine where countless 79 00:03:45.280 --> 00:03:48.240 coats of rubbed them bald. The windows offer a distorted 80 00:03:48.319 --> 00:03:51.639 river of movement, always flowing but never truly clean. Everyone 81 00:03:51.719 --> 00:03:54.400 I know passes through here. At the new stand, Tom 82 00:03:54.439 --> 00:03:56.319 greets me by name, with the comfort of someone who 83 00:03:56.360 --> 00:03:59.080 long ago accepted his place as observer rather than participant. 84 00:03:59.759 --> 00:04:02.479 More Miriam, he says, flicking his eyes toward the groan 85 00:04:02.560 --> 00:04:06.000 cue for the twenty six weather. Can't make up its mind, eh, 86 00:04:06.400 --> 00:04:09.560 I shrug, returning his easy grin What else is new? 87 00:04:09.639 --> 00:04:12.199 Bus forty seven's here again? Must be a good omen, 88 00:04:12.719 --> 00:04:14.919 he gives a non can mittle grunt. His universe, I 89 00:04:14.960 --> 00:04:18.279 suspect is less interested in patents and more in crosswood answers. 90 00:04:18.920 --> 00:04:21.560 Across the street, Missus Rumfield hovers near the flower stall, 91 00:04:21.680 --> 00:04:24.800 weighing the merits of tulips over daffodils. She stops me 92 00:04:24.879 --> 00:04:27.040 later as I return from the bakery, her arms weighed 93 00:04:27.040 --> 00:04:29.959 down with groceries. You are too young to understand, but 94 00:04:29.959 --> 00:04:32.600 at a certain age, you start aiming for the small certainties, 95 00:04:32.639 --> 00:04:34.160 like a bus that shows up when you expect it. 96 00:04:34.240 --> 00:04:37.279 She says, eyes twinkling. You ever noticed how much calmer 97 00:04:37.319 --> 00:04:39.519 every one is now? Imagine if everything in life round 98 00:04:39.560 --> 00:04:42.399 that smoothly. Her comfort in the system is absolute, so 99 00:04:42.480 --> 00:04:45.399 casually it would be rude to challenge it. Clara Renfield 100 00:04:45.399 --> 00:04:47.720 knows every shop owner in our block gossips in the 101 00:04:47.759 --> 00:04:50.000 way only someone with no real secrets can. E refers 102 00:04:50.079 --> 00:04:52.879 to the bus driver's by first name. Then there's Avery. 103 00:04:53.480 --> 00:04:55.800 I see him nearly every ride, usually huddled with the 104 00:04:55.800 --> 00:04:58.720 book and an air of distracted purpose, tall with a 105 00:04:58.720 --> 00:05:00.800 shock of dark hair and the slight hunch posture of 106 00:05:00.839 --> 00:05:03.519 the perpetually over attacked student. He rides out of necessity, 107 00:05:03.680 --> 00:05:06.399 not nostalgia. Once I asked if he cared that bus 108 00:05:06.399 --> 00:05:09.000 forty seven always seemed to be waiting. He blinked a 109 00:05:09.000 --> 00:05:12.040 few times. I usually just hop on the first one there, 110 00:05:12.120 --> 00:05:15.759 haven't thought about the bus itself. Then, after a hesitating glance, 111 00:05:15.879 --> 00:05:18.160 I guess I always take the forty seven, but mostly 112 00:05:18.199 --> 00:05:20.959 remember reading until my stop. The rest of the world 113 00:05:21.040 --> 00:05:23.439 moves in the narrow lanes of chatter, cooking tips, the weather, 114 00:05:23.560 --> 00:05:27.839 local politics. In this tangle, my own private experiment is blossomed. 115 00:05:28.399 --> 00:05:30.839 I keep a small notebook for jotting gentle oddities. How 116 00:05:30.839 --> 00:05:33.720 the bustep o'clock runs three minutes fast in spring away 117 00:05:33.720 --> 00:05:36.639 pigeons aligned by color on East Ledge. The curious regularity 118 00:05:36.639 --> 00:05:40.079 of the Vickery's random pyrotation retirement has made me both 119 00:05:40.120 --> 00:05:43.000 lonelier and more attentive. It's why the comfort of bus 120 00:05:43.040 --> 00:05:45.680 forty seven gliding into place each time, a tiny miracle 121 00:05:45.759 --> 00:05:48.360 invisible to everyone but me, sticks like a mathematical bear. 122 00:05:49.040 --> 00:05:51.519 I tell myself, I'm prospecting for beauty in the every day. 123 00:05:51.600 --> 00:05:54.160 But if I'm honest, it's more than that. I want 124 00:05:54.199 --> 00:05:57.399 to see the edges where probability bends, where routine so 125 00:05:57.480 --> 00:06:01.439 familiar it's nearly invisible. Starts to wobble reviewing the strangeness underneath. 126 00:06:02.000 --> 00:06:05.480 Bus schedules themselves are never perfect. In school, when I 127 00:06:05.480 --> 00:06:09.879 taught probability, I give examples from transit misconnections, the unpredictability 128 00:06:10.040 --> 00:06:13.319 verily buses making late ones later. The city schedule for 129 00:06:13.319 --> 00:06:16.120 forty seven officially registers four runs in the morning, five 130 00:06:16.160 --> 00:06:20.839 in the afternoon, mostly clustered around rush hour delays, deeters, weather, chaos, 131 00:06:20.959 --> 00:06:23.560 gating events. All of these shake the numbers, lose, create 132 00:06:23.639 --> 00:06:26.920 lovely errors for analyzing. But Bus forty seven is immune 133 00:06:27.000 --> 00:06:29.360 not only to lateness, but to every disruption I have 134 00:06:29.399 --> 00:06:32.639 thrown against it so far. Suddenly I realize there is 135 00:06:32.639 --> 00:06:35.439 an asymmetry to my world. Everything else is slightly noisy, 136 00:06:35.519 --> 00:06:39.079 off kilter, But this, this is perfect. And so with 137 00:06:39.079 --> 00:06:41.120 the kind of gleeful stubbornness, I set out to prove 138 00:06:41.160 --> 00:06:44.120 myself wrong. I wake at upsode ours, leave at dawn, 139 00:06:44.120 --> 00:06:46.839 and again after dark. Circle the city block, then drop 140 00:06:46.879 --> 00:06:49.319 into the deeper, like a coin tossed into an unfamiliar fountain. 141 00:06:49.839 --> 00:06:53.160 I pick week days and then a Sunday. Once intentionally, 142 00:06:53.199 --> 00:06:55.040 I drag my feet on a bit of holiday morning 143 00:06:55.040 --> 00:06:57.600 when no traffic drums on the sidewalks are silvered with frost. 144 00:06:58.360 --> 00:07:01.279 My phone confirms no busses should be running. The city's 145 00:07:01.279 --> 00:07:03.439 schedule is unequivocal. The apt blair is the yellow strip 146 00:07:03.519 --> 00:07:07.079 cross around forty seven, no service, public holiday. The depot 147 00:07:07.120 --> 00:07:09.720 is all echo and hollow footsteps. The digital signs blank. 148 00:07:10.360 --> 00:07:14.079 Outside car is clicked by windows foggy. But Bus forty 149 00:07:14.120 --> 00:07:17.759 seven is there, not just present, a gleaming white, spotless, 150 00:07:17.759 --> 00:07:20.560 the smell of new upholstery and champoo hanging in the air, 151 00:07:21.240 --> 00:07:25.680 the same digital sign, same idesling gentleness, A different driver, 152 00:07:25.759 --> 00:07:28.160 this time an older woman, implied in corduroy, greeting me 153 00:07:28.199 --> 00:07:30.519 with aid happy Monday, as if the silent holiday of 154 00:07:30.600 --> 00:07:33.800 normality is the epitome of orador. It isn't just me. 155 00:07:34.439 --> 00:07:37.040 The usual passengers appear, filtering in as if drawn by 156 00:07:37.079 --> 00:07:40.279 an invisible leiche. Missus Rinfield beaming with frozen roses in 157 00:07:40.319 --> 00:07:42.519 her tote, avery hair damp with and brushed sleep. The 158 00:07:42.560 --> 00:07:45.879 silent pair of high schoolers, jackets sipped up high, all 159 00:07:45.879 --> 00:07:48.879 behaving entirely as if this is normal. If anything, the 160 00:07:48.879 --> 00:07:51.639 bus has never felt more certain. I finally slipt the 161 00:07:51.680 --> 00:07:55.279 question into conversation with Missus Rnfield. She does not blink. 162 00:07:56.000 --> 00:07:58.040 That bus is always there, if only everything else in 163 00:07:58.079 --> 00:08:01.360 life was so reliable, And there after a moment, honestly, 164 00:08:01.439 --> 00:08:04.199 I wish the grocery lines were half a steady. Avery 165 00:08:04.240 --> 00:08:07.120 is harder to pin down. When I mention my experiments, 166 00:08:07.319 --> 00:08:10.319 he furrows his brow, shrugging. I think I usually ride 167 00:08:10.319 --> 00:08:12.600 the forty seven, but I don't really remember the bus 168 00:08:12.680 --> 00:08:15.720 itself just where I get off. Then he winces laughs. 169 00:08:16.560 --> 00:08:18.720 Not sure that makes sense. I always mean to pay 170 00:08:18.720 --> 00:08:21.680 more attention for missus Radfield and the others. This is 171 00:08:21.720 --> 00:08:24.879 comfort beyond question. But for me, trained in ratios, in 172 00:08:24.920 --> 00:08:27.000 the messness of real world day to the probability of 173 00:08:27.040 --> 00:08:30.480 this consistent alignment is absurd. There is no randomness here, 174 00:08:30.519 --> 00:08:33.919 only a contradiction so sharp it feels staged. I spend 175 00:08:34.000 --> 00:08:37.039 at night wrestling equations in my head, running through permutations, 176 00:08:37.200 --> 00:08:40.200 back of the envelope simulations with margins clipped in red pen. 177 00:08:40.799 --> 00:08:43.759 The chance of a single bus never scheduled perfectly matching 178 00:08:43.799 --> 00:08:46.840 my shifting arrival times for over a year, through storms, holidays, 179 00:08:47.080 --> 00:08:49.919 An intentional sabotage of routine collapses into a fraction so 180 00:08:50.000 --> 00:08:53.480 tiny it might as well besier. A quirk becomes a paradox. 181 00:08:54.120 --> 00:08:57.000 Feeling both foolish and accilerated, I prepare a more systematic 182 00:08:57.080 --> 00:09:00.840 approach beginning Monday morning. Nope, Can he and I record 183 00:09:00.879 --> 00:09:03.360 the precise time, date, and weather conditions of every trip 184 00:09:03.399 --> 00:09:06.279 to the deepot. The exercise is both tedious and throwing, 185 00:09:06.279 --> 00:09:08.879 each entry a test, every variable potential lever to tip 186 00:09:08.919 --> 00:09:11.799 reality back into place I visit the depot in the 187 00:09:11.799 --> 00:09:13.879 blank space between the five o'clock rush and the seven 188 00:09:13.919 --> 00:09:17.039 o'clock lull, when the platforms are usually deserted and even 189 00:09:17.080 --> 00:09:20.080 the vending machines sandpowed by their own hum. Day one, 190 00:09:20.240 --> 00:09:23.840 drizzled two twenty seven p M Bus forty seven is present, 191 00:09:23.919 --> 00:09:26.919 driver whistling softly as he wipes the windshield from inside. 192 00:09:27.440 --> 00:09:30.360 Day two, by cold wind seven two a M Bus 193 00:09:30.360 --> 00:09:33.679 forty seven already idling all pop ballot timming from the radio. 194 00:09:34.279 --> 00:09:37.039 Day three, midweek Newmann at after my book club Branlade. 195 00:09:37.559 --> 00:09:40.039 The bus sits there like a monument to reliability, lights 196 00:09:40.039 --> 00:09:43.120 glowing like an invitation engine purring. Each time I use 197 00:09:43.120 --> 00:09:45.679 a different entrance, sometimes the side door by the maintenance area, 198 00:09:45.759 --> 00:09:48.720 others through the main artery. On Thursday, I circle the 199 00:09:48.720 --> 00:09:51.600 building twice, loitering beneath the mural of the railroad can 200 00:09:51.639 --> 00:09:53.600 to see if I can catch Bus forty seven in motion, 201 00:09:53.960 --> 00:09:57.039 just pulling in or perhaps parking. But no matter how 202 00:09:57.080 --> 00:09:59.200 I handle my approach, the bus is already there and 203 00:09:59.240 --> 00:10:01.440 move them ready, not a hint of recent arrival, and 204 00:10:01.480 --> 00:10:04.120 no screech of brakes, no hurried steps from the driver, 205 00:10:04.279 --> 00:10:07.679 no swheir al of diesel exhaust. I start taking footographs, 206 00:10:07.799 --> 00:10:09.759 quick shots on my phone, aiming down the end to 207 00:10:09.799 --> 00:10:12.399 lane in hopes of catching the bus pullingion. All I 208 00:10:12.519 --> 00:10:14.519 end up with is a small gallery of stationary bus 209 00:10:14.559 --> 00:10:17.720 forty seven shots, indistinguishable except for minor changes in the 210 00:10:17.720 --> 00:10:19.639 shade throne by the sun or the gliston of rainwater 211 00:10:19.679 --> 00:10:22.600 court on the cobe. The passengers, too, seem to filter 212 00:10:22.679 --> 00:10:25.399 in from desperate directions, never in a group, never at 213 00:10:25.399 --> 00:10:27.879 the same instant. It says, if we are each summoned 214 00:10:27.879 --> 00:10:31.000 in isolation and only converge unnoticed inside that blue and 215 00:10:31.039 --> 00:10:34.000 ivorus shell. Midway through the week, I double check the 216 00:10:34.000 --> 00:10:36.759 depot official rut boarder battered wooden frame and a blinking 217 00:10:36.799 --> 00:10:40.440 digital schedule posted just above the information desk. I trace 218 00:10:40.480 --> 00:10:44.720 a finger down the list. Routes fifteen, twenty two, twenty six, thirty, 219 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:48.080 fifty two and seventy one are all there. Forty seven 220 00:10:48.159 --> 00:10:50.799 is not. The digital scroll skips from forty six to 221 00:10:50.879 --> 00:10:53.919 forty eight clean as if nothing is missing. Perplexed, I 222 00:10:53.960 --> 00:10:56.200 approach one of the info clerks, a small man with 223 00:10:56.240 --> 00:10:59.720 that patient paper shuffling energy unique civil servants, Could you 224 00:10:59.759 --> 00:11:02.720 tell me about bus forty seven, I ask, infusing my 225 00:11:02.799 --> 00:11:06.200 voice with practiced innocence. He unfurls a printed route map 226 00:11:06.200 --> 00:11:09.240 with a practiced motion. Don't see if forty seven listed, 227 00:11:09.320 --> 00:11:11.360 Maybe you are thinking of a shuttle. Some run irregular, 228 00:11:11.440 --> 00:11:13.879 but those get numbers in the hundreds. He has the 229 00:11:13.919 --> 00:11:16.799 look of someone gently nudging me toward the eggs. Yet 230 00:11:16.840 --> 00:11:19.919 if as driver's waiting between runs, most nob with mild confusion, 231 00:11:19.960 --> 00:11:22.360 O must be one of the flea runs open enough, 232 00:11:22.519 --> 00:11:24.279 or I think it's just e sloop used to be 233 00:11:24.320 --> 00:11:27.080 a bigger deal. Their answers dilate, as if rehearsed, but 234 00:11:27.159 --> 00:11:31.039 faintly insure. No one expresses surprise. If I had left 235 00:11:31.039 --> 00:11:32.879 it there, it might just have become another needle in 236 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:34.759 my notebook, a joke for bridge club or dinner out 237 00:11:34.759 --> 00:11:37.600 with the neighbors. But two further details lodge in my 238 00:11:37.600 --> 00:11:40.600 mind and refuse to be shaken loose. First, the bus's 239 00:11:40.639 --> 00:11:43.000 internal clock is always in perfect synchrony with my phone, 240 00:11:43.519 --> 00:11:45.320 not just in the hour, but to the minute, even 241 00:11:45.360 --> 00:11:47.360 on the morning after the end of daylight savings, when 242 00:11:47.399 --> 00:11:49.679 the entire city's computer systems drive their feet on a 243 00:11:49.679 --> 00:11:52.399 parade of mobile phones chined at miss mushed intervals. On 244 00:11:52.480 --> 00:11:54.639 Bus forty seven, the clock tipped into the new hour, 245 00:11:54.679 --> 00:11:57.159 an exact step with my own, neither head nor behind, 246 00:11:57.320 --> 00:12:00.000 as if the two were drawing from a share well second, 247 00:12:00.120 --> 00:12:03.080 the overhave radio and Bus forty seven consistently offers news 248 00:12:03.080 --> 00:12:05.080 a day out of date on what should have been 249 00:12:05.080 --> 00:12:08.840 Monday morning. The radio delivers Sunday's traffic report, Pumpkin Festival updates, 250 00:12:09.200 --> 00:12:12.320 and whether for storms now spent. The trivia cushion on 251 00:12:12.320 --> 00:12:14.960 the digital screen near the fair's references last week's home game, 252 00:12:15.039 --> 00:12:17.879 even though the city's teams played this morning. I mention 253 00:12:17.960 --> 00:12:19.919 it to a fellow rider, a quiet woman flipping through 254 00:12:19.960 --> 00:12:22.879 the classified, who shrugs and says, maybe the stream's just slow. 255 00:12:23.440 --> 00:12:25.840 But it happens again and again, off by just enough 256 00:12:25.879 --> 00:12:28.639 to register as discording. If you're listening on the last 257 00:12:28.720 --> 00:12:31.440 day of my first experiment, offer particularly heavy rain. A 258 00:12:31.480 --> 00:12:34.159 cross reference my notes against the city's online route tracker. 259 00:12:34.759 --> 00:12:38.639 I search forty seven in the system, no result. The 260 00:12:38.720 --> 00:12:40.960 tracker throws up a blind and no rough fund message. 261 00:12:41.000 --> 00:12:45.279 Every other bus, even the ones failing to arrive, are tagged, mapped, timestamped, 262 00:12:45.919 --> 00:12:49.320 but not this one. Anomalies multiply spinning away from the 263 00:12:49.320 --> 00:12:53.240 easy narrative of bureaucratic oversight into something stranger. The bus 264 00:12:53.240 --> 00:12:56.399 isn't schedule, but it's always present. It is enlisted, but 265 00:12:56.399 --> 00:12:58.799 it's always there for me, and evidently a few others. 266 00:12:59.480 --> 00:13:01.679 All of this I tempt at first to stuff into 267 00:13:01.720 --> 00:13:04.759 the language of statistics. But even the forgiving laws of 268 00:13:04.799 --> 00:13:08.360 probability have their boundaries. What's happening with Bus forty seven 269 00:13:08.440 --> 00:13:12.039 is no longer interpretable as a pleasant, persistent work. It is, 270 00:13:12.120 --> 00:13:15.639 by every calculation I know, impossible. I convince myself that 271 00:13:15.639 --> 00:13:18.399 if this bus belongs to some corner of reason, someone 272 00:13:18.440 --> 00:13:22.159 must recall its provements. Someone must have scheduled it, driven it, 273 00:13:22.279 --> 00:13:24.240 or at least registered its journey in the deep files 274 00:13:24.240 --> 00:13:27.600 of municipal memory. So I start digging, not just in schedules, 275 00:13:27.600 --> 00:13:30.480 but in the strata of public history. The city's website 276 00:13:30.519 --> 00:13:33.120 offers a shallow archive, easy to browse. Once he wagered 277 00:13:33.200 --> 00:13:36.159 the expected clotto of holiday announcements and recycling time tables, 278 00:13:37.039 --> 00:13:40.600 I try combinations of Bus forty seven eastleap especial routes. 279 00:13:40.720 --> 00:13:43.960 Every permutation I can divide, aside from a few years 280 00:13:43.960 --> 00:13:46.159 old threads about community shuttles in the reference to a 281 00:13:46.320 --> 00:13:49.960 temporary forty seven in a snowstorm. There's nothing consistent at 282 00:13:50.000 --> 00:13:52.720 the library, my old aunt, albeit one now more familiar 283 00:13:52.720 --> 00:13:54.679 as a source of nostalgia than challenge. I flipped through 284 00:13:54.679 --> 00:13:57.799 microfilm of the city newspaper in a faintly yellow chilt 285 00:13:57.840 --> 00:14:00.320 from nineteen eighty five. Bus forty seven appears is a 286 00:14:00.320 --> 00:14:02.519 regular loop, but in the nineteen eighty eight up to eight, 287 00:14:02.600 --> 00:14:06.000 after the overpass lapse on Finch Avenue, vanishes, replaced by 288 00:14:06.000 --> 00:14:09.240 a redirected fifty three for a few months. In twenty twelve, 289 00:14:09.240 --> 00:14:12.759 search results jump with scattered mentions emergency shuttle service route 290 00:14:12.759 --> 00:14:15.720 forty seven. A blacker had crippled half the city, and 291 00:14:15.759 --> 00:14:18.480 some form of bus forty seven filled the breach, but 292 00:14:18.559 --> 00:14:21.399 by autumn the mention of aperates. I stopped by the 293 00:14:21.399 --> 00:14:23.840 Transit Authority Office, a dull brick building where the old 294 00:14:23.879 --> 00:14:26.519 world still reigns, and counters are divided by partitions that 295 00:14:26.600 --> 00:14:29.320 neither muffle nor amplify. The woman at the front desk 296 00:14:29.399 --> 00:14:32.720 is sharp eyed, polite. When I inquire about Bus forty seven, 297 00:14:32.879 --> 00:14:35.279 she frowns slightly, perhaps calculating if my question is a 298 00:14:35.320 --> 00:14:38.600 complaint or a legal threat. She disappears for a moment 299 00:14:38.639 --> 00:14:41.720 to consult a binder or a supervisor, then returns, offering 300 00:14:41.720 --> 00:14:44.679 me a laminated copy of this year's schedule. No bus 301 00:14:44.679 --> 00:14:48.559 forty seven, no mention of its existence. Maybe an old 302 00:14:48.559 --> 00:14:51.000 bouge that stuck around, she offers, But I can only 303 00:14:51.000 --> 00:14:53.679 show what's in the system. Sorry. Her dismissal does not 304 00:14:53.720 --> 00:14:56.039 feel like a cover up. It reads as on this 305 00:14:56.080 --> 00:14:59.039 confusion a blank spot. No one cares to Phil. Days later, 306 00:14:59.120 --> 00:15:01.000 I mention all this to eight Ivvery on the right arm. 307 00:15:01.600 --> 00:15:03.600 We sit near the back, a thin strip of sunset 308 00:15:03.679 --> 00:15:06.559 press and gold fingers through the glass. I recount the 309 00:15:06.559 --> 00:15:09.240 overpass collapse, the emergency shot, at the gaps in the record. 310 00:15:09.799 --> 00:15:13.600 Avery listens. I buz drawn, sometimes, he says quietly. I 311 00:15:13.600 --> 00:15:15.440 get off, and I'm not sure what street I'm on. 312 00:15:15.440 --> 00:15:17.440 Only for a minute, but it's like I forget which 313 00:15:17.440 --> 00:15:20.799 ways north happened just this morning. Then he blushes, tucking 314 00:15:20.840 --> 00:15:24.559 it away. I never really thought about it. His admission 315 00:15:24.600 --> 00:15:28.399 is more unsettling than he realizes. The anomaly, it now seems, 316 00:15:28.639 --> 00:15:31.320 is not only about scheduling. It is about prisons, and 317 00:15:31.440 --> 00:15:33.399 may be memory itself, about things that slip in and 318 00:15:33.480 --> 00:15:36.799 out of notice with practiced ease. This knowing suspicion that 319 00:15:36.840 --> 00:15:39.200 Bus forty seven's oddity is as much a product of 320 00:15:39.200 --> 00:15:41.000 how it's remembered as of how it runs, keeps me 321 00:15:41.080 --> 00:15:44.080 up at night. I dig deeper, pushing into places that, 322 00:15:44.120 --> 00:15:46.879 if nothing else, prove my decades of logical reasoning are 323 00:15:46.879 --> 00:15:50.960 not infallible defenses against the quietly impossible. One brisk Saturday, 324 00:15:51.039 --> 00:15:53.200 I am invited to a volunteer appreciation event at the 325 00:15:53.240 --> 00:15:56.399 community Center. Free cake, damp coffee, a few familiar faces. 326 00:15:57.000 --> 00:15:59.080 I spot mister Parlett, who drove a bus for the 327 00:15:59.120 --> 00:16:01.799 city for thirty years and retired before my own career ended. 328 00:16:02.440 --> 00:16:05.639 Over pink frosted muffins, I risked the question, did you 329 00:16:05.679 --> 00:16:09.000 ever drive the forty seventh? The sloop? He laughs, his 330 00:16:09.080 --> 00:16:12.039 voice were all with cigarettes and age. Back in the day, 331 00:16:12.120 --> 00:16:14.240 I did, big old steering wheel. Every bump in the 332 00:16:14.279 --> 00:16:16.360 road felt doubled. They shut that line down after the 333 00:16:16.360 --> 00:16:19.240 overpass problem, never put the funding back. Funny though, I 334 00:16:19.279 --> 00:16:21.440 swear I've seen that number flashed and the deep aboard 335 00:16:21.679 --> 00:16:24.759 like a ghost. Old Habit's hand on his memory is shot, 336 00:16:24.879 --> 00:16:27.600 but the details turns soft at the edges. We ran 337 00:16:27.639 --> 00:16:30.120 an emergency forty seven during the blackout shore A few 338 00:16:30.159 --> 00:16:34.960 weeks maybe after that gone, he looks thoughtful. People used 339 00:16:35.000 --> 00:16:37.600 to joke about phantom routes. Once someone actually wrote the 340 00:16:37.720 --> 00:16:39.679 sloop a month after we've closed it swore it was 341 00:16:39.679 --> 00:16:43.480 on time, too odd, But again no answer, just a 342 00:16:43.519 --> 00:16:46.960 residue of contradiction preserved in anecdotes. The more I try 343 00:16:47.000 --> 00:16:49.679 to piece together in origin, the more the anomaly disperses. 344 00:16:49.799 --> 00:16:52.879 Like misunder scrutiny plus forty seven is less a hidden 345 00:16:52.960 --> 00:16:55.919 route and more his oonne were schedules, memories and physical 346 00:16:55.919 --> 00:16:58.399 prisons are bent until they almost but not quite snap 347 00:16:59.039 --> 00:17:01.720 that sense. Only shout opens the next evening, as does drops, 348 00:17:01.720 --> 00:17:04.480 and the deeper radiates with sodium light. I set in 349 00:17:04.559 --> 00:17:07.640 my usual seat, nobeck open, the bus gathering its small congregation. 350 00:17:08.240 --> 00:17:11.519 An idea strikes one uncharacteristically windical from me. If PUS 351 00:17:11.519 --> 00:17:14.799 forty seven strangeness permeates prisons in perception, perhaps there is 352 00:17:14.799 --> 00:17:16.880 something to see, some image that I cannot register, but 353 00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:20.559 a camramite with the hard edge of mathematical experiment driving me. 354 00:17:20.680 --> 00:17:23.119 I pull out my phone as the bus pulls from 355 00:17:23.119 --> 00:17:25.680 the deeper a SNABISELFI my face framed by the city, 356 00:17:25.720 --> 00:17:28.759 dissolving into shadow outside. Then I pivot and shoot a 357 00:17:28.759 --> 00:17:31.480 photo through the window. Asto frant I know well, reflections 358 00:17:31.519 --> 00:17:33.680 of the interior lights meant to overlay the faint script 359 00:17:33.680 --> 00:17:36.559 of the world outside. I repeat this, filling the ride 360 00:17:36.559 --> 00:17:39.319 with uncharacteristic energy, gathering data that only I seem to 361 00:17:39.319 --> 00:17:42.920 care a bad home. Again, I upload the photos. At 362 00:17:43.000 --> 00:17:46.680 first glance, the images are unremarkable. My feature is the seats, 363 00:17:46.720 --> 00:17:48.480 the gentle slope of the aisle, the bright wash of 364 00:17:48.599 --> 00:17:52.000 led overhead. But when I look more closely, something goes awry. 365 00:17:52.680 --> 00:17:54.480 Where there should be a reflection, a blurred ghost of 366 00:17:54.519 --> 00:17:56.839 my face imprinted over the neon sign of carman's nails, 367 00:17:56.920 --> 00:17:59.039 or the blurred headlights of passing cause there is instead 368 00:17:59.079 --> 00:18:02.079 only the outside, well, unimpeded, crisp. Even as the glass 369 00:18:02.079 --> 00:18:05.119 catches the light, my image meant to be doubled by 370 00:18:05.119 --> 00:18:09.079 the window sheen is nearly absent, a faint, watery outline 371 00:18:09.240 --> 00:18:11.880 not so much reflected as faded, impossible to separate from 372 00:18:11.920 --> 00:18:15.920 the v beyond. It makes little sense the same experiment 373 00:18:15.960 --> 00:18:18.200 at are the rites the fifteen the lumbering twenty two 374 00:18:18.240 --> 00:18:22.279 renders normal results, reflection sharp, sometimes comically distorted by the 375 00:18:22.279 --> 00:18:25.359 curve of the glass. When as show Avery dragging him 376 00:18:25.400 --> 00:18:26.640 to the window at the end of the riot and 377 00:18:26.680 --> 00:18:29.319 instructing him to try it, he lasts nervously, but agrees. 378 00:18:30.000 --> 00:18:32.240 His photos taken on my phone then his are the same. 379 00:18:32.319 --> 00:18:34.920 The city outside pure and undisturbed. His own outline, disturb 380 00:18:34.960 --> 00:18:37.720 benea faint are absent. We should try a real camera, 381 00:18:37.799 --> 00:18:40.880 he suggests, good sport that he is. He borrows an 382 00:18:40.880 --> 00:18:43.680 old point and shoot digital from the university's journalism club. 383 00:18:44.200 --> 00:18:46.480 The next day we repeat a process an identical light 384 00:18:46.559 --> 00:18:50.599 in the same seats. The results are unchanged at Bridge 385 00:18:50.599 --> 00:18:52.680 Club after the day's hands are counted and the tea 386 00:18:52.759 --> 00:18:54.759 is lost as warm. I mention this to June, who 387 00:18:54.799 --> 00:18:58.319 works part time at a local photography studio. She is skeptical. 388 00:18:58.880 --> 00:19:01.599 Trick of the light, she insie, or may be your 389 00:19:01.640 --> 00:19:05.240 exposure settings. Modern phone cameras are weird about glass. When 390 00:19:05.279 --> 00:19:07.240 I press she asks me to take similar photos on 391 00:19:07.279 --> 00:19:10.359 her commute. She writes the twenty two every morning, and 392 00:19:10.400 --> 00:19:13.640 her testimages show nothing unusual. Reflections bright and complete, every 393 00:19:13.640 --> 00:19:17.119 seat and face doubled neatly as expected. This all told 394 00:19:17.319 --> 00:19:20.119 might be written off as paranoia, but the bug grows. 395 00:19:20.799 --> 00:19:24.039 I find myself collecting comparison shots during a sunny afternoon. 396 00:19:24.160 --> 00:19:27.279 On every city bus I can catch, only Bus forty 397 00:19:27.279 --> 00:19:30.200 seven refuses to play along. On every other the world 398 00:19:30.240 --> 00:19:33.720 distorts in the way of come to trust, predictable, measurable, mundane. 399 00:19:34.319 --> 00:19:37.680 Yet Bus forty seven uniquely is recalcitrance, refusing to show 400 00:19:37.720 --> 00:19:42.200 a single true reflection. Not me, not the passengers, not 401 00:19:42.319 --> 00:19:45.440