The One-Way Story
by mnzan
· 02/03/2026
Published 02/03/2026 15:02
His hands were weathered on the wheel,
the kind of hands that know a lot
about waiting.
We'd just left the airport.
The city was blurring past
in that way it does,
nothing sticking,
everything temporary.
He started talking about his son.
Not asking if I wanted to hear it,
just saying it,
the way you do when the words
have been building up,
pressing against your ribs
for so long
that a stranger in the back seat
seems like the perfect place
to let them out.
Surgery tomorrow.
Spine.
Serious but routine,
he said, though routine
is a funny word for something
that keeps you awake at night.
I listened.
What else was there to do?
He had three more hours with me,
three more hours to talk
about his son,
about the hospital,
about the way fear lives
in the small space
between routine and serious.
I told him things too.
Nothing real.
Just the kind of talk
you give a stranger,
the performance of connection
that means nothing
because tomorrow
he'll have a different passenger,
a different person
sitting in the back seat
of his cab.
When I got out,
I gave him cash.
More than the meter.
A thank you
for letting me witness
his small terror,
his need to tell someone,
anyone.
He said thank you.
Probably forgot me
by the next fare.
That's the thing about cab rides.
They're one-way.
Even if you're both moving forward,
you're really moving away.