‘Adam’: Short stories by S Hareesh, author of the prizewinning ‘Moustache’, in English translation

‘Ahaha! How sad to think there is, in this world,
Nothing more wretched than human existence’

“Aren’t you getting off?”

Desperately hanging on to the ticket rack with his left hand, the conductor, who looked neither young nor old, asked him. “The place you bought the ticket for is far behind us.”

“Yes! Stop the bus!” he said, waking up suddenly and looking anxiously into the night. Whether the conductor rang the bell or not or the driver stopped the bus or not, he found himself in the darkness outside as the bus sped away towards its destination.

Later, he would re-examine those unclear moments several times in his mind. Were there other passengers in the bus? And were they, except, perhaps, for a handful, asleep, swinging like damaged pendulums? Did a couple of them wake up at the sound of the conductor’s voice and look at him with interest? Perhaps a child had laughed.

He thought the conductor had grabbed his shoulder and shaken him awake. The leftover pain in his shoulder must be from the conductor’s fingers. Or did he bang it against something when he scrambled up? He tried to imagine that the conductor had, with the help of some passengers, pushed him out of…

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