Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds

The bus window forms a frame, as if I am an auteur
raising both thumbs and index fingers to my magic eye
and cropping the scene to fit my vision. The street spools past,
like the history of cinema, from its black & white
dawn to the greyscale of kitchen sink, while the sunrise fails
to tint the trees technicolor. The glass is gauzed by streaks
of rain-deposited dirt and the morning-coffee breath
of condensation as I zoom-in on my heroine:

the twenty-something woman draped in gabardine, on stilt-
heeled leather boots, crowned by a crocheted pink beret. Her bag
bulges with the inner tubes from toilet rolls, empty egg
cartons and cardboard packaging squashed flat, so I deduce
she is a teacher. I track her in imagination
as she mounts the stairs and pauses. Cut to a brief wide shot
of the crowded upper deck, to establish there is but
one empty seat, next to the hero, as the script demands.

Our shoulders touch. Later, I will add a reaction shot
to suggest electric shock. For now, I pan to capture
her profile in slow reveal. She could be Sandra Bullock,
when younger, playing the girl-next-door before her glamour
is made manifest. Perhaps she has a complex about
the pink tip of her prominent nose. Intercut pupils
in the playground chanting ‘Beaky!’ behind her back, then fade
to a fantasy: I kiss the point and taste vanilla-
ice upon my lips. There is no dialogue penned to speak.

The soundtrack falls silent: an artful use of John Cage’s
‘Four Minutes Thirty-Three Seconds’, or my iPod’s faithful
playback of a long gap before the hidden bonus track.

She alights outside the primary school’s gates. Parts her flock
of children serenely as a shepherdess strides across
an asphalt field, with one eye out for wolves and the other
fixed on the market place. No matter what I write into
the script, I know she will not turn to watch the bus depart;
the lens pulls back. Her starring role transforms the dull commute
into a drama. Will they? Won’t they? Tune in tomorrow
for the latest episode. Cue end credits. Fade to black.