The Hollow Mile
(A bedtime broadcast from somewhere between three small towns.)
They call it the hollow mile.
Not for distance, but for what it leaves behind.
It's a loop that runs between three small towns—San Isidro, Santa Maria, and Balite Junction—and somehow manages to always be the same length, no matter how far it stretches.
Every morning at five-forty-seven, a blue-and-white provincial bus pulls out of the depot by the rice mill. The air at that hour still tastes like dew and diesel. Dogs bark once, half-asleep. The roosters don't even bother.
I've been riding that bus for a month now. Not to get anywhere. Just to feel something move.
The driver's name is Lito. That's what the name tag says, though the letters look repainted too many times. His cap always sits low enough to cast his eyes in shadow. He greets everyone the same way—one nod, one faint hum, no ticket punch.
"Round trip?" he asks.
And I always nod.
We start through San Isidro Crossing first. The bakery's already open. The smell of pan de sal sneaks through the cracked window, warm and dusty. A few vendors wave from their tricycles, faces soft in the dawn haze.
Past that, the road widens into sugar fields. The bus shudders, breathes, and climbs toward Santa Maria Ridge. Up there, the fog spills over the hills like milk boiling over. You can see the whole valley at once—the roofs, the smoke, the thin silver line of the river.
Then Balite Junction. Always Balite last.
It's not really a town. Just a wide curve where the highway meets an old bridge. There's a waiting shed with cracked blue paint and a mango tree that's been struck by lightning but refuses to fall.
Every trip, it looks the same.
The same jeep parked crooked by the tree.
The same stray dog sleeping under the bench.
The same faint echo of church bells, even when there's no church nearby.
Lito slows down just enough to make the suspension sigh, then turns the wheel.
The bus groans once, like it's remembering something, and the loop begins again.
It used to feel comforting—the rhythm of it, the predictability.
But lately, things have started slipping sideways.
The first time was small.
At San Isidro, the bakery was closed.
The windows dark, the smell gone.
It wasn't a holiday. It wasn't Sunday.
When I asked Lito, he said, "Maybe they moved."
But when we came around again, twenty minutes later, the bakery was open.
People queued at the counter. Steam poured out the door.
And the same baker waved at us like we'd never passed.
The next day, at Santa Maria, there were children flying kites near the ridge.
Bright cloth triangles cutting through the fog.
The day after that, they were gone.
The kites, too.
On the third morning, the road dipped and the fog cleared just enough for me to see another bus ahead of us.
Blue and white.
Same number on the plate.
It was parked sideways in the road, hazards blinking slow.
Lito braked hard, muttered something that sounded like ay naku.
Then, from inside that other bus, its horn honked—three short bursts.
Our bus answered, same pattern.
A perfect echo.
And the lights flickered.
When they came back, the road was empty.
No bus.
No tracks.
Just mist closing in where it had been.
I told myself I was dreaming.
But dreams don't smell like gasoline.
After that, the days blurred.
Passengers changed faces but never seats.
The woman with the basket always took the fourth row, right window.
The boy with the folded map never unfolded it.
A man with a miner's hat sometimes sat by the door, always humming the same broken tune.
They weren't strangers exactly.
They were… placeholders.
People shaped like memory.
One morning, the boy tapped my shoulder and asked, "Have you ever tried walking?"
"Where to?" I said.
"Between the stops," he answered.
"Sometimes the road talks back."
I laughed it off.
But the way he said it—soft, certain, like he'd already tried—followed me through the rest of the ride.
That afternoon, I did try.
I got off at Balite Junction, pretending to stretch my legs.
Lito nodded without surprise.
He always knew before I did.
The air outside smelled green and tired.
The rice paddies shimmered gold, insects skating across the surface.
I walked along the road until the sound of the bus faded.
Ten minutes, maybe fifteen.
My footsteps felt too loud, like the earth was listening.
When I turned around, the bus was there again.
Parked by the mango tree.
Engine running.
Doors open.
Inside, my seat was empty.
Lito raised a hand in greeting from the driver's window.
"Round trip?" he called.
And before I could answer, I was already climbing back on.
Something changed after that.
The ride started feeling heavier, as if the bus were climbing even on flat ground.
At Santa Maria, fog crawled through the windows like water finding cracks.
At San Isidro, the bakery sold bread that tasted faintly of riverwater.
At Balite, the dog lifted its head for the first time—and I realized it didn't have eyes. Just two smooth, pale sockets where the world reflected wrong.
That night, I couldn't sleep.
Every time I closed my eyes, I felt the vibration of the engine through my pillow.
Every time I breathed out, I swore I could hear the brakes hiss somewhere in the distance.
When I checked the clock, it said 5:47 a.m.
Always 5:47.
A few days later, a new passenger joined.
Middle-aged, wearing a jacket too warm for the season.
He smiled like someone who recognized everyone on the bus, even me.
When we reached Balite, he leaned toward me and whispered, "You remember her?"
I didn't know what he meant.
"The one who used to sit by the window," he said.
"Always carried a red thermos."
There was no one like that.
But when I looked at the empty seat beside the boy with the map, I saw a small dent in the cushion—as if someone had just stood up.
The man nodded toward it.
"She missed her stop," he said.
Then he looked away, like that explained everything.
The next loop, the seat was gone entirely.
Just smooth metal where the cushion had been.
I tried taking a tricycle once, out of curiosity.
Paid the driver extra to bring me to the next town over, somewhere beyond Balite.
We drove for half an hour under gray skies, past empty rice fields and power lines humming like bees.
When I looked up from my phone, the tricycle was parked in front of the bus stop again.
Same mango tree.
Same shed.
Same bus waiting quietly, doors open, as if I'd never left.
The tricycle driver turned to me, face blank.
"You forgot your change," he said, handing me the exact fare I'd paid him thirty minutes ago.
Then he drove off into the fog and didn't make a sound doing it.
After that, I stopped pretending to escape.
I'd wake up, dress, walk to the depot, and wait for Lito's bus to sigh awake.
Sometimes he'd hum old ballads.
Sometimes he'd say nothing.
Once, I caught him talking softly to the steering wheel, thanking it for "keeping the line alive."
He must've noticed me watching because he chuckled and said, "Road's like a story. Stop telling it, it forgets the next part."
The phrase stuck with me.
It felt like a warning disguised as small talk.
Two weeks ago, the bus broke down halfway to Santa Maria.
Smoke coiled out from under the hood, thick and sweet.
Lito swore under his breath and told everyone to wait while he checked.
But when he stepped outside, he didn't crouch or open the engine cover.
He just walked into the fog and disappeared.
Minutes passed.
The passengers murmured softly, some too calm, some too quiet.
Then, from the driver's seat, Lito stepped back in.
Same cap. Same face.
But his shirt was clean again, and the clock above the windshield read 5:47.
We were moving before anyone noticed we'd never started the engine.
Sometimes I wonder if I'm the only one who remembers the loops.
Maybe the others forget each time we turn.
Maybe forgetting is how they stay.
The boy still brings his folded map.
The man still hums.
The teacher's seat still smells faintly of chalk.
They're echoes of people who must have ridden once and kept thinking about it too long.
Maybe that's all memory is—a kind of public transport that doesn't know how to stop.
Last night, I sat near the back and watched the reflection in the window instead of the road.
The scenery passed in perfect sync until the curve before Balite.
Then, in the reflection, I saw the bus keep going straight.
No turn, no junction.
Just a long stretch of road fading into dark water.
I looked up—and we were already making the turn.
In the glass, my reflected self didn't follow.
He stayed seated, still staring forward, face calm, eyes open.
When I blinked, he was gone, and the seat beside me was damp.
This morning, before boarding, I asked Lito what happens if the bus stops.
He didn't answer right away.
He looked at the horizon where the fog was thickest and said, "Then everything else stops waiting."
The bakery woman waved as we passed.
Her hand moved slower than it should have, each motion dragging through the air like syrup.
By the ridge, the fog was higher, almost solid, shaping itself into distant hills that didn't exist yesterday.
The road beneath us shimmered, its paint lines bending slightly inward, closing like parentheses.
The bus hummed louder.
The seats vibrated.
Something metallic sang beneath the floor, a low note that made the glass tremble.
Lito gripped the wheel tighter.
"Almost full," he whispered.
Then, louder, to me: "Round trip?"
It wasn't a question anymore.
Now it's night again.
The sky over Balite glows faintly, like a television left on in another room.
The dog is gone.
The mango tree's shadow stretches across the road, too long for its size.
Lito switches off the lights.
The bus drifts forward on inertia alone.
In the darkness, I can hear the soft murmur of everyone breathing in rhythm.
Even me.
Outside, something huge and quiet moves beside us—a shape keeping pace in the rice fields, outlined by fireflies.
Each time I glance toward it, it rearranges itself—sometimes a bus, sometimes a long spine of light, sometimes nothing at all.
The air tastes faintly of metal and dust.
I close my eyes.
The hum steadies.
For a moment, I think I can hear other buses in the distance—dozens, maybe hundreds—each one looping its own hollow mile, each one full of people who can't quite remember where they were headed.
And somewhere among them, one seat stays empty.
Waiting for whoever tries to leave next.
The clock above the windshield flickers.
5:47 a.m.
Lito adjusts his cap, humming softly.
The fog folds around us like a curtain, sealing the road behind.
He glances at me through the mirror, a smile small enough to hide in.
"Almost there," he says.
"Just one more turn."
The bus sighs, grateful, and the world outside exhales with it.
When I look out the window, the fields are gone.
Only water remains, dark and endless, reflecting the headlights back at us like eyes.
And ahead, through the mist, another bus approaches—same make, same color, same everything.
We pass each other silently, mirrors brushing mirrors.
Inside that other bus, I see myself again—half-awake, half-smiling, whispering to no one:
"Round trip."
The sound lingers after we've passed, echoing through the fog until it becomes the engine's hum itself.
And by the time I close my eyes, the road has already curved.
The world resets.
The bakery door creaks open.
The ridge exhales light.
Balite Junction waits, patient as a promise.
The hollow mile continues.
And somewhere, deep under the steady breath of the bus, a voice older than the road hums back:
Keep the line alive.
End of The Hollow Mile