It groaned to a halt at the bus stop, and, for form’s sake, opened its doors. No one was waiting, and no one got on. Nor did the single passenger, lost in his own inner world, stir. The driver checked the time and closed the doors, and the bus moved on. It would be the same, most likely, at the rest of the stops. Then at the end of the line the driver would walk to the back and nudge the likely-sleeping passenger, who would yawn, stretch and leave, and the bus would complete its circuit, empty.
     The Peninsula was different two hours before dawn. Vehicles were rare, people seemingly rarer—you couldn’t see into the cars, so they might as well have been driving themselves. Often it looked like a clear run all the way down El Camino—the bus might have run every single light with impunity the whole length from San Mateo to Las Bellotas.
     I don’t know why they even schedule a route this early, the driver thought, piloting his vehicle down the dark main street—his name was Dave, not that anyone ever asked him. Sometimes it was pleasant taking the quiet early run, before the bumper-to-bumper traffic, the standing-room-only crowds. He could meditate, prepare for the day, enjoy the scenery, such as it was—he had come to know these streets like a well-worn path, but he hardly saw the buildings or the park at the busy times, just the ever-changing, always-the-same press of traffic, folding in on itself like a long shuffle of cards before the peeling off, randomly, in the deal. But it was frustrating, too—feelings of futility came with the first run. The patrons were there, demographics said, thus the bus must be there for them. But you never saw them. Oh, they might be out in their cars, partaking in the pleasures of an easy pre-dawn commute, but you never saw the cars, either. It was a ghost run, no traffic, no people, just the vacant street and silent buildings, and a silence disturbed only by the creaks and groans of the solitary bus and the eternal fizzing of the wan streetlights in the fog.
     One bus. One driver. One passenger. Transportation, transporter, transportee. It didn’t get any more basic than that. Sometimes Dave thought there was nothing but this, that the rest of the day and night were illusion, and existence boiled down to picking up and delivering the passenger, from whence he knew not, and to what unknowable. The cradle to the grave, as far as he knew—an extended metaphor for life. Time, time’s arrow, mortal man. But then the rest of the day would happen, and it would be the early run that would become the dream. David smiled. And of course, often as not, it was the same early, solitary passenger he was transporting. That rather spoiled the metaphor.
     They were a mixed lot, the early riders. Rarely more than one, many never seen again, but some . . . That bum, Philo, for one, all wild hair and reeking greatcoat, a living rack for plastic bags. One of the few Dave knew by name—he was a talker, Philo, whether you were up for it or not. Philo’s mornings were not the quiet ones. He showed up only once in a great while, but he tended to ride the whole way. God only knew where the man got the bus fare.
     Then there was the girl in the jogging suit, a frequent rider, often three or four days a week—always a short run there, just Sequoia Station to Portola Plaza, where she spent the dawn hours jogging. He knew, because he would often pass her on the second run, and pick her up again on the third for a longer ride, all the way up to San Carlos, where he figured she worked. He often wondered why she bothered with the early run—her jog was a lot longer, and jogging in to the plaza wouldn’t have added a lot to it. He shrugged. Not his business, and she never spoke to him, anyway.
     The small brown guy, nervous and quick, his eyes large and dark—spooky fellow, hard to look at—his eyes seemed to strip you right down to the soul. Another rare passenger, he might get on anywhere, but almost always got out at Discovery Park. You thought deep, uncomfortable thoughts with him around.
     And the sleepers, the ones who boarded early and had to be shaken awake at the end of the line. He had six semi-regulars, who he mentally classed in two groups. Three of the sleepers had a certain amount of—well, not class, character maybe. Intriguing people, interesting to know, you felt, or they would be, if awake. The other three, slobs or roughnecks, tended to snore the whole time, and be surly when awoken. Unlikable, and he liked to see the last of them. Dave didn’t know the names of any of these either, though he had his own names for them. Groucho, Chico and Harpo were the first batch, Larry, Moe and Curly Joe the second. He grinned at his own private joke.
     Other riders, a few, he did know—Franco and Peter, night watchmen at different banks, who would get on for the return leg and liked to talk. Boswell, the old wino, who occasionally staggered aboard after half-sleeping off a late spree, or who even more occasionally was put aboard by the long-suffering Officer Fujita. But mostly Dave got one-timers—taciturn, anonymous, wrapped up in their own purposes, assuming they had any. Faceless, soon forgotten, most of them—others, equally, caught his eye, had Story written large across their features. Then his curiosity flared, but it was rarely satisfied—the tales came and went undivulged, undivined. This morning’s rider, one of the unfamiliars, fairly shouted Story, but without speaking a single word.