Chapter Three:

Alan:

When Alan got onto the bus, he spotted Benny immediately and sat down next to him.
    
Alan took the bus every Tuesday and Thursday to visit his mother. He’d met Benny two weeks ago and the two talked every time Alan was on the bus, and Alan ate up every word that Benny said.
    
He had been skeptical at first, but it didn’t take long for Alan to honestly believe he was talking to God when he rode the bus. After a while, the insanity of the situation wore off and it seemed completely normal.
    
“Hello Alan,” Benny smiled. “How are you today? How’s your mother?”
    
“I’m just fine,” he began excitedly, “but Mum’s great. Doctors say she can come home as early as next week!”
    
“That’s wonderful!”
    
“It’s just like you said, Ben. You said everything would be fine and it is!”
    
Benny nodded. “You never have to worry about illness, Alan.”
    
Alan cocked his head to the side. “Yeah, you keep sayin’ that Ben, but I’ve been thinking… Why not?”
    
Benny shifted in his seat, trying to get comfortable after a few hours on the bus. “See, Al, it’s already been decided when you start and when you end. The beauty of it that you have to decide what to do with the middle bit – and that’s the best bit.”
    
Alan nodded, solemnly. “That’s deep. Ben. Real deep.”
    
Benny nodded as well. He knew the topic of death brought people down; it had already changed Alan from someone almost bursting with excitement to someone with his hands folded somberly in his lap. But Benny wished he could make people see that death really wasn’t so bad. It was inevitable, an unchangeable fact, so why let it bother you? That was like letting sunsets bother you. It’s going to happen, so why not find a way to make the day that you have great, instead of dwelling on when it will end?
    
“Benny?”
    
“Yes, Alan?”
    
“Who decides when we come and when we go?”
    
“I do,” Benny said, simply.
    
Alan pulled the yellow chord that lit the ‘Next Stop’ sign with the ding. “Of course,” he said with a little laugh, “How could I forget?”
    
Alan stood up. “You know,” he said after pausing thoughtfully, “my wife still can’t believe I talk to God on the bus. She thinks we’re both nuts.”
    
“That’s because your wife takes the subway.”