One Story · 25 November 2002

Shecky Chekhov climbed aboard a downtown bus, paid the fare and made his way to the back. He sat and unbuttoned his coat, then took a slim paperback from his pocket. After reading a page or two, he glanced out the window. What he saw made him cry out in anguish.

*   *   *

  1. He sees another man who has also lost a button from his coat arguing a third man outside the bus. He then realizes he is caught in a copy of Experiments in Style.
    — Brian    Nov 25, 10:04 AM    #
  2. White heels with dark stockings.
    — Elaine    Nov 25, 10:11 AM    #
  3. a ufo
    — Spaceman    Nov 25, 10:13 AM    #
  4. An advertisement dipicting a man with his coat unbuttoned, sitting on a bus reading a paperback.
    — Bryan    Nov 25, 10:19 AM    #
  5. His childhood sweetheart, laughing, as she is helped into the waiting limousine.
    — peggy    Nov 25, 10:27 AM    #
  6. Bush/Cheney re-election signs.
    — Forrest    Nov 25, 10:37 AM    #
  7. Unbelievably to his right there were the field lights of Christie Pits when it should have been Honest Ed's. How was he going to make it back in time to meet his appointment? How could he have been so distracted?
    — deb    Nov 25, 10:43 AM    #
  8. his brother Anton, running around like a monkey and throwing feces at people.
    — adam    Nov 25, 10:46 AM    #
  9. detroit circa 89
    — kevin    Nov 25, 10:52 AM    #
  10. Perciville Arseington leaving Malahide Joe's Bump & Grind Tapas Emporium being poured into a rikshaw with one of Chekov's sisters wearing little more than a pair of magenta flip -flops and golfing bag full of lobsters. Flip-flops had featured heavily in treatment that day.
    — sean    Nov 25, 11:12 AM    #
  11. The other Shecky Chekhov.
    — Original Pylon    Nov 25, 11:13 AM    #
  12. He was reading "The Communist Manifesto" and looked out on a capitalist world. Or... He was reading "The Virtue of Selfishness" by Ayn Rand and looked out on a communist world.
    — Steve    Nov 25, 11:30 AM    #
  13. Dean Allen. Nekkid.
    — Beowulf    Nov 25, 11:31 AM    #
  14. an entire issue of maclean's asking whether canada will become part of the U.S.
    — dlt    Nov 25, 11:34 AM    #
  15. a duck
    — joh    Nov 25, 11:38 AM    #
  16. <font> tags! ;-)
    — noel    Nov 25, 11:38 AM    #
  17. The northbound bus, indicating that it would take at least forty minutes more to reach his destination.
    — Fresh    Nov 25, 11:55 AM    #
  18. a beating
    — catherine    Nov 25, 11:58 AM    #
  19. Whatever it was that he was reading about on those two pages.
    — Willem    Nov 25, 12:07 PM    #
  20. The editor who still hadn't paid him for that last story she'd published.
    — lnhammer    Nov 25, 12:26 PM    #
  21. At a bus stop across the street a man is reading a newspaper, the sytle section, and emblazoned across the front page: FUR: It's in again.
    — Dunno Wair    Nov 25, 12:39 PM    #
  22. A billboard for Leah McLaren's best-selling novel, "Entertaining with David Frum".
    — andrew smith    Nov 25, 12:49 PM    #
  23. still more "Jen & Ben" media coverage
    — nat    Nov 25, 12:52 PM    #
  24. Crumbling brownstones through his reflection. And a green minivan.
    — Justin    Nov 25, 01:01 PM    #
  25. Richard Simmons, reading and pantomiming excerpts from Ulysses
    — beerzie boy    Nov 25, 01:03 PM    #
  26. Shecky sees his own reflection super-imposed on that billboard of the happy couple grilling steaks next to their brand-spanking-new SUV out on the rugged terrain, his own head apparently hovering in the air above them.
    — collin (collin)    Nov 25, 01:10 PM    #
  27. The man is reading an American history text. Upon looking out the window, he notices a rider on horseback. The rider is carrying three lanterns. Familiar with the one and two lantern encoding systems, the man opines to his neighbor that the British Royal Air Force may be involved "this time around".
    — Matt    Nov 25, 01:19 PM    #
  28. The man simply boarded the wrong bus.
    — laura    Nov 25, 01:57 PM    #
  29. He saw nothing. Shecky is blind.
    — beowulf    Nov 25, 02:01 PM    #
  30. Across the street, in the shadow of the entrance to a seedy and notorious hotel, he noticed a woman in the embrace of a younger man. Suddenly he realized that the woman was his wife.
    — sf    Nov 25, 02:10 PM    #
  31. William Shatner and John Lithgow.
    — chad    Nov 25, 02:15 PM    #
  32. he sees a young boy with explosives strapped to him, walking next to the bus.
    — AJ    Nov 25, 02:19 PM    #
  33. a billboard depicting the homepage of www.goatse.cx. [NB: unless stretched male rectums are your thing, avoid the site mentioned —dca]
    — kaiser    Nov 25, 02:28 PM    #
  34. Himself, boarding a bus and sitting beside Hugh Selwyn Mauberley and Chuck Marlowe. He realised that there were some things that Hutcheon's A Poetics of Postmodernism couldn't solve...
    — Jake    Nov 25, 02:42 PM    #
  35. the last page of the web.
    — terri o    Nov 25, 02:47 PM    #
  36. He saw something -- perhaps in a downtown theater -- which ruined the end of the book for him.
    — Aaron Schutzengel    Nov 25, 02:53 PM    #
  37. It was Nadine, hair askew, coat unbuttoned despite the wind, her mouth open wide in a cry of either pleasure or pain as a man buried his face into her neck like a hatchet. In a rage, Shecky jumped from the bus, campaign-shouting like a southern diplomat.
    — Woody    Nov 25, 03:03 PM    #
  38. He saw an ex-Marine scratching his crotch and smoking a cigarette.
    — britt    Nov 25, 03:08 PM    #
  39. Jennifer Lopez and Susan Sontag, each with spoons in both hands, wolfing down hot fudge sundaes.
    — skimble    Nov 25, 03:16 PM    #
  40. Malkovich.
    — Dave shea    Nov 25, 03:19 PM    #
  41. It was incredible, the amount of hair grease a city bus window could collect. Prismatic rainbows colored the world not only rose, but wonderful tints of turqoise and amber. What Shecky could not remove from the rear-mounted screen in the back of his skull were the particles, chunks of tissue and effluvium that punctuated the otherwise sublime occurence in front of his eyes. How long had he been resting his head upon the window, anyways?
    — tad whitling    Nov 25, 03:20 PM    #
  42. Himself, 20 years from now, sitting in the same seat, going to the same job, stuck in the same monotonous drudgery, pushing the same blocks up the same pyramid for the same pharaoh, feeling helpless and trapped, desperate for a way out, not wanting to listen to Mother Culture any longer, wanting only the world of freedom and possibility depicted within the thin pages of his book: Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn.
    — Horacio    Nov 25, 03:36 PM    #
  43. High-numbered streets signs Mother of Christ, he was travelling uptown!
    — bootsy    Nov 25, 03:36 PM    #
  44. The sign in the store window read "Hundred's of Item's on Sale!" He threw down the book and held his head in his hands. While Shecky was in many ways a patient man, the one thing he could not stomach was blatant apostrophe misuse.
    — other    Nov 25, 03:37 PM    #
  45. His reflection in the window, revealing that he had been transformed into a giant bug, and that he was reading the wrong book.
    — Dave    Nov 25, 03:58 PM    #
  46. may be it was not a bus. maybe he read ECNALUBMA... and spelled it backwards in about one second.
    — egoexmachina    Nov 25, 04:02 PM    #
  47. Nothing.
    — Justin    Nov 25, 04:13 PM    #
  48. Fire and brimstone coming down from the skies! Rivers and seas boiling! Forty years of darkness! Earthquakes, volcanoes! The dead rising from the grave! Human sacrifice! Dogs and cats living together! Mass hysteria!
    — ton loq    Nov 25, 04:30 PM    #
  49. That man feeding peanuts and stale bread to squirrels and pigeons again, so their populations will soar, along with those of the rats and crows, slowly squelching out all other native species. Also the damn squirrels will dig up plants and bury the f***ing peanuts in the garden.
    — charles k    Nov 25, 04:46 PM    #
  50. Holden Caulfield handing out free, hard-covered, autographed copies of J.D. Salingers 'The Catcher In The Rye'. Shecky bought his paperback copy online at Chapters.ca. Shipping and handling were a bitch.
    — Ray    Nov 25, 04:47 PM    #
  51. There on the curb, receding behind a cloud of blue bus smoke, was his prosthetic penis. Luckily Shecky had packed a spare, which he withdrew from his pocket and stroked, relieved at his foresight.
    — Lou Quillio    Nov 25, 04:56 PM    #
  52. A plastic bag blown in circles by the wind between buildings. It would be lifted up, almost gently, and spiral upwards with ever increasing franticness, only to be battered down again by the same wind that had helped it rise. Then it would be lifted again. It was so beautiful, in an American kinda way. American things always made Shecky cry out in anguish.
    — JH    Nov 25, 05:05 PM    #
  53. this bitch.
    — Jason    Nov 25, 05:20 PM    #
  54. His briefcase, carelessly left unlocked on the curb. It contained the secrets of the universe, which after being rifled through by a young teenager with no inkling of what he was seeing, were scattered by a gust of wind. Precious knowledge lay sodden on the wet pavement and in the path of oncoming cars.
    — mathew    Nov 25, 05:35 PM    #
  55. The startling proof that group contributions can't save a lazy post. As if we needed to be reminded.
    — josh    Nov 25, 05:45 PM    #
  56. A midget with an umbrella playing Monopoly with a one-armed man who has the hiccups.
    — J    Nov 25, 06:06 PM    #
  57. His wife in the loving and passionate arms of another woman. So seemingly simple, so unbelievably heartbreaking.
    — Laura    Nov 25, 06:16 PM    #
  58. His headhunter, wearing a wrinkled suit and sheened with vomit, slumped against a lamppost offering sips from a bottle of cheap wine concealed in a soiled brown paper bag...
    — JD    Nov 25, 06:16 PM    #
  59. Frosting. Tins of frosting. Giant, cocoa tinged, tallow-thickened, lukewarm tins of frosting.
    — um...    Nov 25, 07:51 PM    #
  60. The same thing he sees every day: sun glinting off car roofs, elderly gentlemen talking on the corner, kids running home for dinner. Mundane and melancholy, the scene filled him with a desire to leave the city and return to his childhood farm, but alas the farm was gone.
    — Andrew    Nov 25, 08:04 PM    #
  61. The horrifying sight of Russell Smith and Christie Blatchford locked in a passionless embrace.
    — Neil    Nov 25, 08:41 PM    #
  62. He was on the Dufferin bus, northbound, just as all the area high schools emptied.
    — Rex    Nov 25, 09:09 PM    #
  63. The bus he was meant to be riding.
    — nick    Nov 25, 09:20 PM    #
  64. A blog, just as it jumped the shark.
    — Hopper    Nov 25, 10:04 PM    #
  65. REFERENTIAL!
    — Marshall?    Nov 25, 11:08 PM    #
  66. A woman -- baby in arm -- walks slowly down a sloping street. She looks remarkably like his wife, who will be dead a year tomorrow. She nuzzles her child's ear lovingly, sending him reeling in memories and tears. He can only look away, tears coating his face like a mist. He would have been a father, had it not have been for...
    — Blake    Nov 25, 11:42 PM    #
  67. An elderly woman, begging spare change of a small boy, is refuted.
    — ecd    Nov 26, 12:02 AM    #
  68. A set of forms for the entering of text, their grey blankness a terrifying burlesque of white's purity; the blinking cursor an obscene pulsation, a hopeless parody of the vitality he now knew he could never, in a million characters, catch up with.
    — BT    Nov 26, 12:44 AM    #
  69. the last digit of pi stuck like a garfield toy to the back window of the bus
    — paul    Nov 26, 12:59 AM    #
  70. his wooden leg
    — kobus    Nov 26, 01:00 AM    #
  71. a mime, stuck in an invisible box, looked to be laughing maniacally. five tiny tears were drawn on his face.
    — kelly    Nov 26, 01:08 AM    #
  72. his own reflection or a flatbed truck with a rotating, glowing ad for an electric car on the back
    — Eric    Nov 26, 01:21 AM    #
  73. Dave Eggers
    — Greg    Nov 26, 01:25 AM    #
  74. Textism.
    — Brandon    Nov 26, 03:23 AM    #
  75. some sort of samovar
    — boynton    Nov 26, 03:35 AM    #
  76. Oliver, running alongside...
    — John    Nov 26, 03:37 AM    #
  77. America.
    — Chad    Nov 26, 03:55 AM    #
  78. A man wielding white tennis socks in Docksides. "How can this happen?", he cried.
    — Jonas    Nov 26, 04:10 AM    #
  79. A Palestinian suicide bomber fidgeting with his belt.
    — Dave    Nov 26, 04:33 AM    #
  80. A giant hedgehog whom he referred to as Spiny Norman.
    — Ricardo Lamego    Nov 26, 05:21 AM    #
  81. God, wearing a T-shirt with the words "I'm only down here for an hour" written on it, heading uptown.
    — Tom    Nov 26, 06:59 AM    #
  82. He sees the roads he never took, the buses he let pass, the churches and public WCs he never entered. And he realizes that any other choice, any day, could have changed his entire life. But he will never know just how.
    — Jorun    Nov 26, 07:12 AM    #
  83. The pieces sliding into place.
    — Barry    Nov 26, 07:33 AM    #
  84. A shabby, photocopied flyer stapled to a telephone pole. Good lord, the "Egregious Philbin" show at CBGB was last night - he missed it! As tears well in his eyes, he rips a page from his copy of "Please Kill Me" and blows his nose with it.
    — jonathan    Nov 26, 10:30 AM    #
  85. mullets....horrible horrible... mullets
    — Christina    Nov 26, 10:30 AM    #
  86. A theater sign: Sold Out Henny Ibsen "Why a Wild Duck?"
    — Eeksy-Peeksy    Nov 26, 11:56 AM    #
  87. Some beans
    — Mystery    Nov 26, 06:13 PM    #
  88. Still think it was just a stereotype blogger...
    — roel    Nov 26, 09:01 PM    #
  89. a baby's arm holding an apple
    — skank    Nov 27, 05:41 PM    #
  90. two co-joined twins in classic summertime picnic three legged race mode, taunting, teasing and challenging Christopher Reeves to a race to the Blood Bank.
    — Jeff...alienjeff, to you...    Nov 28, 02:05 PM    #
  91. Starbucks in the process of replacing his favorite mom n' pop cafe.
    — laura    Dec 2, 11:39 PM    #
  92. a slender (but not too slender) attractive couple hopping into their bright yellow Hummer, he carrying an i-mac, she juggling a double latte and a box of new shoes while flipping through the latest issue of Lucky Magazine.
    — george    Dec 4, 02:25 PM    #

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