I sat next to a girl on the bus, thin and blond. She was reading a paperback. “Where are you going?” I asked. She glanced at me. “What?” “I’m going to Albany,” I said. “What’s in Albany?” she said. I laughed. “Not much. My mother died. That’s why I’m going to Albany.” She went back to her book. “That’s why I’m going there,” I said. The bus was passing through countryside, a low ridge of wooded hills on one side, on the other a swampy field with scrub brush, a few bare trees. “I’m sorry about your mother,” she said, not looking up from the page. “It’s all right,” I said. “She was old. Her time had come.” “No one’s time has come,” she said. She looked at me. Clear, gray blue eyes, like I’d fallen through the sky on a winter’s day. “Who reaches the end?” she said. “What gets finished? There are moments. That’s about it.” “My name’s Chip,” I said. “Jim. James, really.” She turned on her side away from me. I could see her face in the bus window. Her eyes were open looking at my reflection. “Wake me,” she said, “when we get to Albany?” I lost myself in my own thoughts. When I glanced back she was asleep. Her eyes were closed. She was breathing. We pulled into the station, and I could see my father standing there. I wanted to wake her, but I didn’t.

Richard Ploetz has published short stories in The Quarterly, Outerbridge, Crazy Quilt, Timbuktu, American Literary Review, Hayden’s Ferry, Passages North, Nonbinary Review, Literary Oracle, Ravens Perch, Front Range Review, Lowestoft Chronicle, Roifaineant Press, Adelaide Literary Magazine, Reverie Journal. His children’s story THE KOOKEN was published by Henry Holt.