Mist shrouds my vision as I gaze up at the sky. The stars are no longer visible here in the dead of night. I can barely see Rachel still walking around the bus station hoping to find one elusive unlocked door. Across the lawn is another man sitting on a bench. The way he's rotating his head makes me think of a king evaluating his small kingdom from atop his throne. I look back toward the stars, but the fog is swirling into thicker clouds instead of growing thinner. Shivering, I curl into the fetal position, pulling my hood tighter over my ears while trying in vain to pull the zipper of my coat even further up over my chin.
"You really thought this was a good idea?"
Startled, I look up at Rachel; I hadn't heard her approach. Sighing, I disdainfully say, "What?"
Rach continues sternly, "You know exactly what I mean."
Annoyed at her sudden change of heart, I defend myself, "Hey, you agreed to come along. Back in Riga you also thought this was a good idea."
Rachel doesn't bother to reply and nestles down on the end of the bench. For early May, I hadn't expected Lithuania to be quite this cold, even at 2:30 in the morning. Images of bums wrapping themselves in newspaper begin flashing through my mind. Here I am, lying on a soggy bench, scanning the ground for newspapers. Or anything, for that matter. I can't see far; the fog is becoming more and more impenetrable to my vision.
Emily and Andy were right. My attempt to save a few bucks had been a frugal but dismally unwise idea. At the hostel back in Riga where the others are now sleeping soundly, Rachel and I had hatched our plan.
"Check it out, Rach, there's a bus that leaves for Klaipeda tonight at 10:30."
"So? Don't we want to leave a few hours before that?"
"Well, yeah, but think about this. It says here that it's a six hour ride, so if we catch the 10:30 bus we'll get there close to 5:00. We can just sleep on the bus and not bother paying for a hostel! Two birds with one stone!"
My ecstasy succeeds in rubbing off on Rach, but not on anyone else.
Emily scoffs at me, saying, "Are you guys kidding me? This is a terrible idea! You won't get any sleep and what are you going to do at 5:00 a.m.?"
Glaring up from the computer's monitor, I snidely respond, "You're just jealous, Em. We're heading to Lithuania for a few days while you're just going to hang back here in Latvia. You can come if you want."
"No, Dally. I am not jealous. Lithuania isn't going to be any different from here, so you're just wasting time and money."
Ignoring her, I click the button, thereby purchasing two bus tickets for Rach and myself.
Sitting at Riga's bus station 10:00 comes and goes. So does 10:15. Also 10:30. Now it's past 10:50. Expecting 11:00 to pass us by without any sign of a bus, a gray van finally pulls up to our stop. A man rolls down the passenger window and says something to us in Russian. I step up to the window and use my limited Russian to confirm that this is indeed bus #11. He nods his head vigorously, "Da da!"
The sliding door on the side of the van jerks roughly as I yank it open. No one else boards the van with us, so I turn to Rach and declare in my most optimistic tone, "Well, at least we'll both have plenty of room to sleep!" I can see that she's reconsidering Emily's starkly realistic remarks just as I am.
The van pulls out and onto the street. The lights of Riga blur and and soon become mere afterthoughts as we climb into the hills on the outskirts of town. Through the window on the left there are only pine trees. This road is bumpy. Portions of it are obviously unpaved. A ghostly reflection of myself stares back at me as I gaze out the right window. The bags under my eyes look like black pits against the backdrop of my pale skin. Refocusing past my transparent reflection I see the great black expanse below that is the Baltic Sea. Looking into the back seat I see that Rachel isn't even attempting to sleep as she stares out the window. I lie down, determined to sleep.
The buckle for the seatbelt that I should be wearing presses deep into my skull as I try to get comfortable. I position my left arm to act as a pillow, but this only serves to change the source of my discomfort instead of relieving it. My fingernails need to be trimmed, but I didn't pack any clippers...
Someone is talking to me in Russian. Of course they are; everyone around here speaks Russian. Suddenly I'm being poked. I snap awake to the driver prodding me in my ribs. We've arrived. I automatically look at my watch. It's barely 2:15 a.m. I look pathetically back at the driver, but he only motions disinterestedly toward the door. I climb out grudgingly and find myself standing next to Rach in an empty lot as the van speeds away to god-knows-where. A heavy mist is slowly creeping up around us; the only thing I can see anymore is a small concrete building. It is something amidst a sea of nothingness.
"Dallin, is this Klaipeda?"
"I sure as heck hope so."
Without another word I begin striding toward the small building. The doors are firmly locked, but a sign on the door assures me that we have reached our destination. This is the bus station; I can tell by the list of bus schedules printed on manila paper taped to the opposite side of the glass door.
"Can we get inside? It's freezing out here!"
"Rach, it doesn't open until 6:00."
"What? Isn't it almost 6:00? We were supposed to get here around 5:00."
My heart sinks as I pull my watch back out of my pocket. It's not even 2:30. Rach recognizes the look of despair on my face and asks me what's wrong.
"Rach, we got here almost three hours early. We're going to be stuck out here for three and a half hours."
Rachel looks around frantically, grabs a beanie out of her bag, pulls it snugly over her ears, and begins walking around the station in desperate search of another door. Watching her march stiffly away, I spot a bench off to my left. Once there, I wipe the dew off with my sleeve and lie down again. I should at least be able to do some star gazing from here.
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