On a Road You Can’t Find

The ticket agent asks me where I want to go. Yesterday, I say. Not yesterday Thursday, but yesterday the year summer lasted forever. The year of my first kiss. The year I could fall from a tree and not break a bone.

The ticket agent hands me a ticket. He points to Corridor 3.

I roll my bag (full of marbles, faded and bent playing cards, and a map of all the stars in the sky) down the corridor, which ends at a road with a bus stop. And here it comes, an old rattletrap school bus, belching smoke, and honking.

The driver punches a hole in my ticket. When he hands it back to me, I see it’s a treasure map.

I won’t tell you if I found the treasure, or if I got to yesterday. I will tell you it’s on a road you can’t find on a city map.

Here’s my ticket. See for yourself.

published in Contemplate