Ruta Norte - 23 hour bus ride through Chilean desert

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A few hours after sunset, seats went back, blankets and pillows out, and the bus attendant started closing the yellow curtains, securing each one shut with a tiny square of Velcro, including the curtains between us and the driver’s cabin.

Streetlights swept outside the fabric, giving the effect of blindly barreling forward in a rectangular glowing box. At times the box slowed and stopped between these bright points of light, its engine idling while some activity went on outside. The passengers seated by the windows slit the curtains and peeked little secrets of their own, rubbing at the glass fogged by their breath. I watched them from my aisle seat, helpless - and a little jealous. The world outside was a mystery of darkness and desert and orange fuzzy globes and the voices of men out there floating through it.

We were in Chile’s northern regions, a twenty-three hour ride on a straight desert highway, sometimes veering inland, sometimes skirting the shore. The box rumbled on, eventually breaking free of civilization and into total darkness. My knees ached. I closed my eyes. I started to dream of high school, a best friend I had not seen for over twelve years. The bus attendant shuffled by, brushing my hand, startling me awake. I’m still in the box, I thought. And now the box is slowing. We’re coming to another stop between bright points of light. The voices. The secret slitting of curtains and squinting through the fogged glass.

A message showed on an electric scroll by the door to the driver’s cabin. In red letters: PANEL DOSCONECTADA O EL SISTEMA DE NAVIGACION SATELITAL HA DEJADO DE ENVIAR INFORMACION DE CONTROL DE VELOCIDAD. It was GPS to keep track of our speed. I kept reading it over and over, assuming we were out of range, or the driver had found a way to cleverly hack into it, keep the law from knowing where he was driving to. Those letters kept coming, pausing, then coming again. They formed a steady electric blood-like drip along the darkened fluorescents above my head. The blood went forward, paused, then continued again in a nice straight line. During a prolonged squeal of brakes, the letters suddenly changed.

FLAPJACK.

The attendant pulled himself forward, a steady grip on every other headrest, silently passing between the sleeping heads and entering the driver’s cabin, slipped in so perfectly I could not even catch a glimpse of what was happening out front. A moment later I heard his voice speaking confidently, a door hissing shut, and then we were off again, into the darkness. Each head that happened to stir awake, returned to sleep. I stretched my aching legs into the aisle and knew that this was it. I could only stare at those red letters on the scroll.
Before long I was focused on the glowing curtains, trying to guess what was out there. In the last hours of daylight we had been passing little towns built on piles of sand, each roof with an aged layer of dust, every sign faded, a large cross erected from the highest visible point. A local or two paused and scowled, and a young boy smiled and gave us the finger - both fists. In the desert between, there were other little mysteries, a tiny shack here and there, a lonely swingset, a tiny decaying vehicle parked nearby - specks in the foreground to massive sandy dunes or the straight baking horizon. On one massive hill someone had taken the time to hike up near the top and lay out rounded stones spelling CRISTO TE AMA in giant letters. Then the darkness came and I had nothing else. My mp3 player went dead an hour out of Santiago.

I took my eyes off the curtains and examined the person in the window seat next to me. A big man. A young fat man with a shaved head. Un weon waton - un flaite - my Chilean friends would say. He was sprawled out and dead-looking. He slept with his knees far apart, mouth open, seemed as though his body was waiting for its soul, a reigniting spark to float between the teeth like a lightning bug. In fact, all the passengers had this look. They were overly cultured and somehow even stranger than normal in this big glowing box, on a random corner of planet earth. Dark skinned, asleep with their heads back and mouths open, on their way to be with others like them. I must have been the strangest, hopelessly foreign and white-skinned - hopelessly aware and with nothing to do. Gringo tonto. Gringo fome.

The engine struggled as the bus began an ascent. After several minutes, my ears clogged until I swallowed to a satisfying pop. I almost smiled. The seat at this angle became a parental hand carrying me upwards. I began to drowse, just resting my head and staring at the air beyond the tip of my nose. There was a rising comfort in being spirited higher into the darkness, and if it came to trouble, I would be the first one aware. I would be a hero. I would warn them all.

Remaining in this tilt, we came to a stop between another set of lights. The attendant appeared from the driver’s cabin, always slipping in and quickly snapping that door shut behind him, always hunched and steadying himself by the corners of our headrests, except now he was falling instead of pulling.

His stocky boyish face remained serious as he stopped before my seat, leaned over, and tapped my neighbor on the shoulder. My neighbor stirred and yawned, his breath reeking so bad I had to turn away and cringe. I shifted my knees far to the side, giving him plenty of room to gather his backpack and leave. I was a little jealous he was escaping the box. He was going out into the grand openness and refreshing coldness between those desert lights. As he disappeared through the door to the driver’s cabin, I noticed the scroll now read

CHUNKS.

Just as soon as the waton flaite was gone, a little old woman slipped in - una viejita. She was dressed as though going out for a nice dinner, or to church, a hat with a large droopy flower on it, a nice purse clutched to her chest. I silently cast my knees aside, and she silently took to the warm seat next to me, smelling of perfume. I could not help stealing glances of her. Who was this? A stranger in the middle of the night - in a place so desolate, looking poor, but dressed so nice? She was asleep within seconds, her jaw wide open, her white leather purse still clutched in her claw-like fingers. In the low light, I noticed her fingernails were painted black. Each one was as long as half my pinky.

The engine groaned. Out of the lights and into the darkness, I thought. Except for the unseen driver and attendant, I knew I was the only one awake.

It was bound to happen. The ease of their slumber caused a knot in my stomach, a burning on my earlobes. I stretched my legs into the aisle, took off my sweatshirt and formed a kind of headrest to keep my head from flopping around, a futile attempt to get comfortable and join them on the other side. Every few minutes I had to swallow and pop my ears. We were still moving steadily upward.

The next stop came. The orange lights glowing through the curtains, more numerous this time. There were also a few icy blue ones, dozens of them in different sizes. The tearing of the Velcro and secretive peeking between the fabric. Even the viejita at my side managed to lean over and have a peek. I remained curious in my seat. The red scroll now read WYOMING.

Out of the corner of my eye, I thought I saw a light shoot straight up - one of the blue ones - followed by a brief electric whine like flooring the accelerator on a golf cart.
The viejita turned and gave me a familiar look; so soon? It was her time to go, along with many others that were already tiredly shuffling towards the front - about half the bus it seemed. I slid my knees over and let her pass. Tucked in my elbows, lowered my eyes, and made myself small. The driver’s cabin door snapped. Some outside voices, now speaking in hushed tones.

The new group entered as dark silhouettes - the last of them, a tall bald man. He stopped and squinted at his ticket before frowning down at me. “Quince?” he said. I scrambled for my ticket and saw I had the same number: 15 - Quince. But it was slow going. The attendant was standing at the front, watching us, an authoritative arm high up on each baggage rest, a kind of hurried glowering. I just slid right over into sixteen. Now I had the window. The secret would be mine. Who cared now?

But we were off again by the time I had a look. After using my palm to clear the class of moisture, all I saw was the chalky fade of the passing divider lanes suspended in blackness. Too many stars to count in a thousand lifetimes. Those globes were far behind. But there was a lot of night left. Those stars winked and slowly fell into the road. In fact, it seemed as though the road was not there at all. It was only lines with a little puff of cloud below. My stomach tingled as it does when I look down from the top window of a skyscraper. I replaced the curtain and pressed my knees into the reclined back of the seat before me. I watched that scroll talk nonsense. I felt for the rumble of the road passing below and felt nothing. Those lights would soon come again, I thought. I now have something to wait for.

It was hard to keep my jaw from trembling. Half a glimpse told me the bald man at my side was watching me, blatantly, his head turned ninety degrees.

Keep my eyes on the scroll.

I remembered him standing over me, his forehead long and shiny and indented across the middle like a slumping pillow standing vertically. He did not look Chilean, he looked Norwegian or Danish, some eastern European bigness about him, a kind of elongated ugliness.

Eventually I glanced over. His bulbous head was back and he seemed as though he was asleep, mouth open. I made an effort to keep my elbows clear of his freakish hands grasping the armrest like a territorial arachnid. And look at this - his fingernails are long and black as well, although they do not shine as smoothly as the viejita’s. Also, hers were rounded, while his come to weathered points like the chewed cap of a ballpoint pen. And then his clothing, formal as well. A green button up sweater over a white collared shirt. Pleated kakhis. Who was this guy?

I slowly sat up and twisted around, noticing the same strange features in the other passengers, as though everyone had been shuffled and changed when I was not paying attention. Their skin was paler than mine, their limbs longer, their foreheads shiny and bubbling as though they were about to burst. Even the long black fingernails. I began catching little glints of glimmering eyeballs. They were staring back at me, keeping very still. They were wary of my alertness. Why wouldn’t I just give into this journey as they did? Who was I to question their defenseless slumber?

I fell back into my seat, catching my stomach as it marched into my throat. I slumped as far down as I could go and pretended to be asleep while keeping watch through my eyelashes, listening for them. Tears formed in my eyes. It was like a game. I was imitating. I could not stop thinking about the way they had all been looking back at me. It was not just a few of them; I was pretty sure every one of their eyes had been upon me. They did not like me knowing.

After silently counting several long minutes, I removed my ticket and cupped it in my hands. EXPRESSO NORTE it said. I looked at the logo above the scroll. RUTA NORTE in fuzzy orange letters. I was on the wrong bus.
The scroll changed again.

CHIMNEY.

The attendant slipped in and fell between the headrests, pausing to tap at shoulders, his magical touch causing limbs to unfold and black-tipped fingers to stretch and reach. This time everyone was rising. I could smell their breath as they stirred to life. My skull felt as though it was about to crack. I knew those globes of light were nearing. I did not want to know what was out there anymore.

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