Bus Station at the End of the Age

Rain makes the tarmac gleam like dark glass.

Streetlamps haloed in mist.

Puddles hold the sky in shards.

A seagull shrieks above the Greggs that never closes.

Double yellows gleam under the wet glow.

Beyond the fence,

a goods train rattles past,

its brakes screaming like an old hymn.

Six buses wait,

engines sighing,

exhaling diesel memories into the damp night.

First bus — Flint and Fire.

Rust-red, scarred by weather.

Passengers wrapped in smoke and animal skins.

Eyes wide with the shock of survival.

No timetable.

Only the rhythm of the hunt.

Lord, is this where we began — bare-handed, trembling,

wondering if the world would last another day?

Second bus — Empire’s Chariot.

Bronze trim, iron wheels.

The driver wears a crown that could cut a man.

Maps spread like open wounds.

Coins clink on the rubber floor, stamped with faces forgotten.

How many kingdoms rise and fall

before your reign of peace touches the earth?

Third bus — Gospel.

Paint soft,

worn like stone warmed by spring sun.

It smells of bread, blood and wind.

The driver’s hands are scarred;

his eyes steady.

A small folding table bears bread and wine.

Passengers are bruised but smiling,

their sorrow and joy stitched into one coat.

Is this still good news, Lord —

in a world that hums with suffering,

and night presses down on all our hearts?

Fourth bus — The Age of Machines.

Steel-grey, hissing, sweating steam.

The smell of coal sticks to fingers and lungs.

Passengers stare through fogged windows,

hands blackened, hearts timed to factory whistles.

Can your image survive in the smog of progress,

or will it be ground into the machines we built?

Fifth bus — Total War.

Camouflage green.

Headlights like air raid beams.

Passengers clutch letters folded and never sent.

How long, O Lord, before swords become ploughshares,

before mourning turns to planting again?

Sixth bus — The Age of Acceleration.

Neon patchwork, TV static, scrolling warnings.

Everyone talks. No one listens.

The driver glances at his watch,

then accelerates before the doors are shut.

Is there a still point in this blur,

or must we live forever chasing what we cannot hold?

The last bus — The Anthropocene.

Black windows.

Its name scrawled in cracked white paint,

as if the one who wrote it feared it might not be true.

The ticket clerk in her high-vis jacket doesn’t look up.

When I ask how far it goes,

she tears the stub in two —

one half for me,

one half for the dark.

“No one knows,” she says.

I climb the steps.

The air smells of plastic, smoke, and something older —

like earth after the storm.

Seats are half-empty.

A child sleeps against a steamed-up window, breath misting the glass.

An old man mutters into his hands.

Two rows back — the Gospel passenger.

Eyes lit with stubborn joy.

Bread and wine in his hands.

He offers the empty seat beside him.

I sit.

He breaks the bread.

Pours the wine.

The engine hums.

The sound fills the bus like wind through unseen trees.

The driver’s eyes catch mine in the rear-view mirror.

For a moment I see the forests burning,

the cities drowning,

and yet —

the road stretches into shadow,

endless,

unknown.

I taste the bread.

And for now, that is enough.

We move.

And we are not alone.

Rev’d Jon Swales,

co2 427 ppm, August 2025