When he would tell me this, he was always quick semi-correct himself by saying that sanity wasn't quite the right word.

Is there a way you can tighten this sentence to ease the read?  It's as if there are a few too many words or lack of organization or something.

very thinly then?”

This phrasing is a bit cluttered and a bit grammatically incorrect.

Later he would tell me that ... so I would indulge him... good answer for that,” he would say. He would never look ...He would catch a bus, ...He would look down....
 

These are several examples of the use of passive language as opposed to active and it's a bit distracting to read.  All of the phrases use the word "would" and would make for a smoother read without that one word, bring the sentences to active.

He looks up at me.

Until here, you are writing with past tense.  This is present, which provides for an ackward break.

The main problem is the use of passive voice and tenses.  I think it's a fantastic story that really left me thinking, burning me with wanting to know more, but tightening the two problems and really mapping out the exacts of this story would make it five star worthy.

Great Job and thanks for the read.

Amber

 Sometimes, if the mood struck him, in that compulsive way where he could muster no will to resist, he would ride the bus. Usually at night, coming back from work, he would walk out of his office and look for that inviting bus stop.

These are two very difficult and slightly confusing compound sentances. I think when writing short fiction, you're first paragraph makes the difference of whether or not a reader is going to pick it up. It seems to me that starting off the story with a difficult and hard to read sentance is sort of tripping at the starting line. To have two of them at the opening of the story could be the deathnail to the stories readability. I think it would improve the story exponentially to use simpler sentances and cut down a bit on the multiple comma per sentance use.

“How long did this last? Your self medicating by bus riding I mean.”
    He shot me a faint smirk, “Maybe about a year.”
    “That's a long time.”
    “It felt fast. That year, went by real fast. You know how we always say that every year goes by faster than the one before?” he asked.
    I nodded.
 

You seem to do dialogue very well . The flow of the conversations in this piece are very fluid and readable, and it is obviously your strongest point.

I think the Bus/Africa guy is a really good,interesting charecter. I find him very believable, and as a reader I can empathize with his sense of alienation.  I agree with Amber's general appraisal concerning stylistic conventions; it needs a lot of cleaning as far as flow and passive voice. But other than the English Major kind of stuff, my only suggestion is that you add more. Right now it isn't a story as much as it is a transcript of a conversation. You need to have something happen, have some conflict, growth, the hero's journey and all that good stuff. I think once you shape the grammer stuff up, you have a great opening to a potentially great story.  Thanks for posting this!

Hi Arthur,

I read this a long time ago and just now am writing about it, so I apologize if I sound disjointed. Overall I think you're writing about an interesting notion, a theme of exploration and escape that we can all relate to, but I felt this piece brushes quickly over the emotional thematics while making room for non-dramatic dialogue.

Sometimes, if the mood struck him, in that compulsive way where he could muster no will to resist, he would ride the bus. Usually at night, coming back from work, he would walk out of his office and look for that inviting bus stop. He knew all the closest ones next to his office. At other, more rare occasions, he would leave work in the middle of they day, even if he was in the middle of something.

"rarer"

I crossed out that line in the middle because I felt it wasn't needed.

Later he would tell me that it wasn't even laziness. It wasn't that he needed a break from work. It was just something he had to do. To hold on to his sanity. When he would tell me this, he was always quick semi-correct himself by saying that sanity wasn't quite the right word. He never though he was going insane.

"quick to semi-correct himself"

I felt the prose was slowly starting to become more a pondering dialectic of existence rather than a story.

“It's just that I would lose all connection with what made me feel like me,” he explained, “I felt like I was just an observation deck, a vista point – if I looked in the wrong direction for too long, I would forget where to look for the right parts. They'd get lost in the rest of the landscape. Nothing was mine. Nothing was tangible”

Because I don't know this guy, I felt like I couldn't really get into his mind. It's a lot of abstract ideas. For me, I'd rather get a setting and watch characters in motion. (But maybe that's not your goal!)

I asked, not knowing why someone would forget what it feels like to be themselves.

“I don't have a good answer for that,” he would say. He would never look at me when answering that question. Not like I could help him anyways. Not like he wanted help. Maybe not even needed. “All I know is, when I got on that bus, on any bus, I immediately felt more alive. All of a sudden I would know my place in the universe. My name was mine again. My hands were my hands. There was substance.”

My professors always tell me that a big chunk of dialogue is rarely good, except for when we really really know and care about a character. I'd therefore recommend cutting this down a little.

A smile broke through on both of our face – mine and his imaginary one.

I just felt this sentence was awkwardly phrased. I can barely get an idea of what's being explained.

He shot me a faint smirk,

. (period, not a comma)

“It felt fast. That year, went by real fast.

no comma after "year"

“Well, this one was different, it went by much faster than the one before, but the one that followed was much slower. I think, actually, every year since never felt as fast as that one. It was the most effortless year of my life. Never had I had to do so little to feel content. Just get on the bus. Ride it for half an hour. It doesn't get any easier than that. But... once that phase was over, I never found another quick way to reconnect with myself.”

My same issue as before about a big chunk of dialogue. I just can't get behind it.

He would look down.

Is this an intentional shift from past to present tense?

“Sometimes. Not as often as when I was younger. I think over the years I learned how to hold a bit more of myself in. Sometimes I freak out, and I think of this one book I always keep by my bed. I've read it like fifty times, but every time I reread it, I feel a bit more like myself. Anyways, I just recall a few passages, and I feel a little bit better.”

As I mentioned already.

I never picture him as the sort to be interested in far off place

"I'd never pictured him..."

The first time he told me this, I admit I was very confused

Again, there's a concern with the shifts in tense, or at which point in time is this story being told/written.

Well, I guess it's the feeling of not being stagnant. I automatically feel connected. Something different moves me. Something real. I can touch it... it's more solid than I have ever felt. I'd get on this bus, I'm surrounded by people. Talking, thinking, sleeping, moving. They're all going somewhere. And they're all real.”

You guessed it. The same issue.

He got lost in some unsaid thought.

I don't understand this.

“Sure. That's it. I have no problem with dying for something. I just don't have anything worth dying for.”

This is better. Interesting ideas.

“That's all of us you know, there's nothing else we need, and all we have, well no one's going to take it from us. And it kills us, we have this innate instinct to fight for our survival but nothing really threatens us.”

I get it, but it's a little too much for as short a piece as this is. Since I already get it, and there's no sense of setting or action, I kind of skim over the philosophy. (Hate to say it, but showing not telling would help here!)

When he was there, I felt a bit different. My friends would point this out. I would quickly become more outgoing. I would agree to spur of the moment plans, stay out later think about changes I wanted to make, believe I could really make them.

This is telling (for me).

I'm not sure how long its been since we last talked.

"it's"

The weird thing is, lately, I don't recall much about him. I can't quite pin point the sound of his voice. If he called, I'm not so sure I'd recognize him. A few weeks ago, I went to visit a friend in San Diego. A group of us went surfing. There was a brief moment, when I finally caught a wave, I looked back and for second I could have sworn that I saw him out there, waiting for the next wave. But that's absurd.

Why not expand on this? You don't really expand on your reasoning why? That, at least, would give me a sense of the narrator and his developed attitudes about his lost friend.

I'm pretty sure though, that when we were kids, we must have lived on the same block. Maybe my parents know how to find him.

This seemed weird to me. I remember everyone on my block growing up. And even if I don't remember all their names, I certainly don't get someone else from elementary school or some other place confused with one of those kids who lived on my block.

Anyway, I hope this all is helpful to you. Again, I'm not sure what type of piece you intended to create here, so I'm not knocking you for anything that it's not meant to be. My opinion is just as if it were supposed to be a story.

 Hi Arthur,

Thanks for sharing this piece! I really enjoyed reading and trusted your narrative from the very first couple of sentences. As I was reading, I kept waiting to find out more about these characters' relationship, their history, their names even, and I ended up coming away with very little knowledge of what happened. You focus on this man's obsession with buses and his feeling of being disconnected, but like others have said, we don't really get close to him, even though we learn about this intimate quirk.

As Synaesthesia pointed out, at times this story is a little too abstract and wide-lensed for what the reader knows. We're not given enough context to make these (well-written) dramatic passages resonate. Why does this man have this fear? What in his past has led him to his current damaged state?

I can buy the side character narrator. I think it can work, but in retrospect, this story feels like the end of a much longer piece-- like we're just reading the last three or four pages of a twelve or fifteen page piece.

So, I would like to see more development. More growth in the characters and conflict like Kieran said. You have some excellent, excellent material here. But now, it seems, you need to find the beginning and middle of the story this conclusion was cut off from.