[Amake]

Once upon a time there was a bus driver. He did his job fairly and well, and did not consider himself a timid man, until one day the monster came on his bus.

'Monster don't pay', it said, and walked right by the driver and sat down in the back of the bus.

The driver was more than speechless, he was paralyzed, drained of all thought. He failed to report the incident to his supervisors, but carried it in silence for almost a week, until it happened again.

Like before, the thing squeezed through the bus door and forcefully stepped past the driver, barely recognizing his existence with a dismissive look and again, the words, spoken like a wet rotting thing from under the earth, 'Monster don't pay.'

This went on for several months, during which the driver often switched shifts and drove different routes, but the creature almost seemed to follow him, taunting, mocking, delighting in the terror it gave and the power it held over the poor driver. All it ever said, like a mantra, was 'Monster don't pay.'

Eventually, the driver's resolve grew stronger. He said to his bus driver wife one night, 'I'm not going to let it beat me', and as he spoke he felt some steel deep inside the core of himself that he had not before been aware of. He took night classes, and as his shift changed he took day classes, in positive thinking, in conflict management, in assertiveness and confidence, in the arts of war and martial combat. He lifted weights and ran, and slowly his bus driver belly turned into muscles, and he began moving with a different poise, a different purpose in his step and a newfound gentleness in the swing of his shoulders, as if he was taking care not to break things as he touched them.

Eventually, the driver was ready. On a crisp spring morning like any other the monster came on his bus and said, with the same nonchalant cruelty as always, 'Monster don't pay.' But this time, the driver embraced the steel within him and spoke, with a loud and commanding voice.

'And why doesn't Monster pay for his ticket like everyone else?' he said.

'Monster has month card', it said.