The book lost the ability to hold my attention. It seemed to lengthen in my hands so instead of turning another page, I turned to man sitting inches to my left. His eyes were closed but his breathing lacked the tell-tale rhythms of slumber, so I asked him, because I was cold, if he was cold, too. Without opening his eyes, he mumbled something about body temperature being a state of mind—I knew he was awake!—which I deciphered to mean he was cold like the rest of us but pretended not to be.
The bus reached deeper into the night. Random lights kept us from darkness and except for a soft conversation somewhere behind me, it was quiet. I opted against saying anything further and re-opened my book, even flipped pages on occasion but this time only pretended to read.
But I was still cold.
Fiction by Foster Trecost
Image by Adam Strong
Foster Trecost writes stories that are mostly made up. They tend to follow his attention span: sometimes short, sometimes very short. Recent work appears in Club Plum, Flash Boulevard, and Roi Fainéant . He lives near New Orleans with his wife and dog.
Backwards Trajectory 