“Once, a very long time ago, I found a journal on the bus. It was sitting on the very last row by the window, and I didn’t notice it until I had sat down and situated myself. The cover shiny and unblemished, but it looked used and possibly loved. Most of the pages were written on, they flipped easily and I noticed sketches and neat, box-like handwriting. The very back of the last page had the words, “Tell me how it finishes,” written in all capitals on it.

As the bus let people off at the last stop before it entered the Pali, people streamed out the doors and I settled down in my seat. Alone, just me and the bus driver, the journal vibrated as it perched on my lap. It seemed to be emitting a warm electrical current.

Regarding the journal, I mostly wondered about the author…why they left it on the bus, where they were headed, what they were thinking. I was eager to start reading their inner most thoughts and emotions. But at the same time, in the back of my mind I was sure that I’d be zapped by some all powerful journal God if I violated its sacred secrecy. I remember actually chuckling aloud at that thought.

I opened it anyway, just as the bus shuddered around the Pali hair pin turn. I slowly lifted the hard bound cover.

Before I could realize what happened, the pages started fluttering wildly and a hot wind blew fiercely into my face. As the tempestuous wind gained strength, the bus was bursting at its seams, and the doors were flapping loudly. I held tightly to the journal with one hand, and with the other I grasp at one of the metal stability bars.

“Ahh!” said the driver.

“Ahh!” I said.

The driver soon lost control of the bus and hurtled over the Pali ledge. My body flew up with the momentum and slowly my eyeballs worked their way through my soft grey brain tissue until my cerebral cortex was completely penetrated. Due to gravity and the force of the fall, my own eyes were as effective as bullets at destroying my brain. However, my heart was still beating. That is, until the bus crashed and a particularly pointy pine rammed itself through the center of my body. Then I was completely dead.”

The shimmering light finished its tale matter-of-factly and seemed to regard me with indignation.

“That, young girl,” said the ghostly spectre, “is my tale. HEED IT OR PERISH.”

**

“Ahh!” I said outloud and realized with a start that I had been having a nightmare. There was a long drool mark against the window of the bus, and that journal I’d found at the bus stop was still balanced on my lap.

Looking up through the window, I realized that we were just about to hit the hair pin turn. Creepy, I thought, I’d just been dreaming about that.

I picked up the journal in my hands, and with a slight flip of my stomach, I opened the black, hard bound cover page.