There's a particular type of cold to be found at bus
stops: whether rain damped or wind chilled or bit with ice. It fosters a
particular type of appreciation for the thick piled fabric of the bus seat
cover. The fabric pattern is avant-garde, brightly coloured.
The bus doors are open. Onions are frying, over at the
Gong Fu Kitchen. The driver waits for an elderly couple to recover suitcases
from a taxi. He steps out to lift the cases in, while they worry that the taxi
driver has left without a tip: I meant to give him something, the lady sighs.
They look for their bus passes, synchronised. I never would have thought of the
bus, the lady sighs, but eight quid it saves. She shows her pass. Her husband
nods and holds out her cardigan sleeves so she can slip her arms in and warm
up. The driver asks them which stop; there are two in their village. The second
one, they say. He is a foreigner, the lady notes as they sit down, for no discernible reason.
At the rear of the bus a man speaks, softly, to himself.
The bus rumbles, loud. Rain rolls horizontal over wide windows. The lady
unfolds a plastic rain hood to tie over her hair. She will go home and brew a
pot of tea: they will have a tea cozy to keep their brew hot. They thank the
driver, waddle the cases off: I will need my mac, she says, and thank you so
much. The bus doors close.
I like this bus. It goes just fast enough to fright me.
Everyone smiles and there's no sense of dystopia: just the usual messy sort of
life made of things that went right, or didn't.
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