Chand raat at Mohakhali

The heat rising off the asphalt at Mohakhali bus terminal carried the shared panic of a thousand people who were convinced they would miss the Eid jamaat this morning. The air tasted of burnt diesel, cheap cigarettes, and raw desperation.

I was wedged against the rusted iron grille of the ticket counter, the glass smeared with the sweat, fingerprints, and dirt you only find at bus terminals. Behind it, a man with hollow eyes and a fading henna-red beard mechanically thumbed through a stack of thousand-taka notes. He looked like he hadn't slept since the first roza.

"Bhai, one seat. Just one seat. Barishal. I'll pay double," I said, my voice eaten by the roar of idling rusted engines.

He didn't look up. "No tickets, mama. Everything is sold out. Try the local buses outside."

Ishmam, my colleague, had just called two hours ago from the comfort of his living room, laughing, calling me an idiot for waiting until chand raat to leave. Turns out, he was right. I had stayed too long juggling multiple office chores, and now the city was collecting its dues.

A violent surge in the crowd shoved me away from the counter. A family of five muscled past, dragging heavy bags that stenched of synthetic attar and stale sweat. The father had his young son's wrist locked in his fist like a man clinging to a straw while drowning. "Mymensingh? Any bus for Mymensingh?" he shouted into the general direction of the noise while his words dissipated into the air.

Just then, a helper hanging off the door of a dented, almost wrecked, yellow bus cut through everything with a sharp whistle. "Sirajganj! Bogura! One seat, back row!"

The scramble was almost instantaneous and without mercy. Men in freshly tailored panjabis—stitched for the next morning's prayers—threw elbows for the simple right to go back home.

I walked back to the edge of the pavement and let the wave break past me. Somewhere above, the new moon was up, buried behind Dhaka's smog and the flat glare of cheap hotel signs. I wiped the sweat off my forehead and opened the ride-sharing app again. Nothing. The terminal danced and hollered around me, but when I looked down the main road, the rest of the capital had already gone quiet—the particular silence of a city that had emptied itself, and left people like me behind.

Iftehaz Yeasir Iftee, a student at IBA, University of Dhaka, is a featured poet in the global anthology Luminance under the pseudonym Brotibir Roy.