Baa

I sat on the bus, on the lower deck. There was a sweet yeasty smell
in the air, almost like someone had a fresh loaf of bread. "Baa," said
a voice behind me. I realised the smell was coming from the old drunk,
as if he himself were fermenting. "Baa," he said again, not an
accidental sound, he was mimicking a sheep.

At the bus stop near where I work there are footsteps in the road. They
meander for a way then stop abruptly in front of the drain cover, as if
someone had drunkenly stumbled through the setting concrete and fallen
in.

"Baa," came a sound from the drain. I had heard stories. A truck full
of livestock had once overturned on the M4 motorway and they never
recovered all the animals. Some people said there were sheep living
down there, in the sewers. Said they'd grown unnaturally ferocious, the
lost sheep. Desperate due to hunger, eating rats, scraps, anything that
came their way. There were stories of motorists who'd broken down,
stopped on the hard shoulder, walked off to call the AA on the nearest
motorway emergency phone, and never come back.

I shivered though in truth the evening wasn't all that cold, the sun
just beginning to set.

"Baa."

Goddamnit. Was I just hearing things? I turned my back on the drain.
The off-license in front beckoned me like a siren. What the hell. I
bought a packet of salt &; vinegar and a hip flask of Claymore.
Scoffed the crisps, their sourness sucking the juices from behind my
jawbones. Took a swig of whisky. It burned, I shuddered, then
everything was okay.

Somewhere in the Arctic, an Eskimo was fishing through a hole in the
ice. He got bored eventually and went home to his wife.

My bus pulled up, a big red brick, the upper and lower decks sparsely
populated at this time in the evening. A big-boned Jamaican woman got
off, head and body wrapped in colourful cloth. She looked tired, walked
off slowly, stiffly, bags of groceries in each hand. I didn't get on,
the bus left. I looked back at the drain. Wandered over. My feet would
have made a complementary set of tracks but the concrete was still
hard, would be for a very long time. A swathe of artificial sedimentary
rock. I wondered what future paleontologists would make of it, what
stories they'd concoct to link the wealth of artifacts in this brief
strata together.

I was standing right over the drain when I heard another "Baa." It was
loud, right beneath my feet. The sudden noise startled me. Like a fool
I jerked with fright, as if an electromagnetic pulse had coursed
through my nerves, rebooting the system. I dropped the flask of
Claymore. The plastic bottle hit the grating of the drain with a dull
thud, then the damn thing slipped through. Fuck, I thought.

"Thank you God!" came a voice from below. The swilling of liquid.
"Aghhh," a satisfied exhalation. "Thank you merciful God,"
chuckling.

Then an echo, sounding far away, "Baa. Baaaa!"

"Oh no," said the voice, gruff, gaelic, weary and resigned in its fear.
"Jesus, no."

"Baaaa. Baa!"

The bleating was louder now. I heard splashing and scuffling. What the
hell?

The next bus was coming. I listened carefully for more sounds but the
traffic was loud and the drain was quiet. I got on and rode home,
thinking. What a waste of a bottle of whisky. Still, there was a
quarter of that Sambuca left in the cupboard, if I could stomach
something so sweet. "Baa," I murmured to myself quietly. The other
passengers looked away.