Your Neck is Full of Blood Vessels

 H swung into the bus shelter and balanced upon the far end of a thin plank of plastic bench. Stamping his feet and breathing coils of greyish haze, he huddled against the glass side-wall. Spiky frost patterns flourished in the corner of his eyes and he burrowed chin-first further into his jacket, scanning out of habit a convoluted chart of times rendered torn and doubtful by the passage of time. Beyond, slick wisps of early morning mist shaped a netted blanket over glistening gravel. His gloved hands slid into a warm nook between his thighs and a suited man clicked out of the shrouds to hover near the bus stop entrance. The man slipped a look over H then turned to face the road again, tapping a cigarette out and bringing it to his lips. His head, barely upturned as he lit the small cylinder, was momentarily a silhouette against the phosphorous dark sky, and in that moment H felt something however minutely shift and deaden in the world.

Under your right foot, breathed the man through folds of smoke blending and rolling in the downy air. H glanced up and around, then felt foolish for having done so.

'Sorry?' he blurted, lifting his lips above the jacket collar.

To the right a little more, and under your foot, snapped the man. He flicked his cigarette onto the kerb, shaped to go then suddenly spun round, his face sticking through the entrance. His black hair was slicked taut over his head and the whites of his eyes were sticky as if boiled sweets. The minimum we ask for is a level of competence, he snapped. Confused, H ran the tip of his boot over flecks of dirt and wet leaves as threads of light smoothed the idea of a new day across the fields, leaking onto the road. In this amplified moment the muck seemed to coagulate as H scrutinised it, tipped with wrappers and a plastic straw and cigarette butts and the man darted forward a step and planted two warm fingertips firmly on the back on H's neck before turning on his heels and clicking back off into the mist.

Caught briefly in a moment of extreme tunnel vision scalding a clipped permanent circle of glued leaves and pavement into his memory as he reversed upwards, H rubbed the bulges of his cervical spine and stared down the road. Two more people brushed into the stop, shivering and rubbing hands and huffing self-conscious friendly rhythmic displays of cold. H glanced up and to the side again and planted his furry palms on his knees, trying to compose himself.

'Number 14 been yet?' Smiled a rugged older plump of face through layers of woolly hat and scarf and buttoned up jacket, his question peaking in pitch at its death. A heavy spell dangled whilst H processed recent thoughts, trying to separate the procedure from the tingling sensation under his tapered nape. 

'No-'. The man's eyes were bright and waiting and eager and as H's face turned to support his reply the man stepped uncomfortably close, hot musty breath radiating over H's cheek. He jerked out an arm, reaching around to press the fleshy bulge of a fingertip into H's lower neck. The second younger man, toying with his phone at the far opposite end of the bench, looked up with a crinkled nose, narrowing eyes and shaking head that melted away as he rose to his feet and crunched over to snake his fingertips into the gathering at the base of H's neck. H sat stupified, head bowed as the three of them fused as some kind of statue, some tender communion or spark of awareness or mutual transference of thoughts and hopes and possibilities rippling and as he tentatively looked up H could see the old man's eyes reddened in the glow of the emerging sun and he knew that he had been deeply hurt by something terrible and the youth knew this too. 

Grinding suddenly out of disseminating white tendrils, the No. 14 hissed to a stop. A clutter of people initally quelled by an unsteady shuffling elderly woman dismounting spilled past to crowd the stop. The crush of bodies unravelled the interlinking statue and moment of contact but immediately more fingers, sweaty and grimy and searching, groped for the back of H's neck. Curved nails ran past the patch of skin and smeared sadness and reciprocal sadness and he heard glass cracking and he could not see a single gap in the throng of padded jackets and heavy boots. In panic he began to scrape at the skin, to remove it, before swinging his bag round and with a flourish producing and donning a scarf.

The rabble paused, hands withdrew then almost with a click people fanned out and left. H slumped against the back glass panel. The youth was playing with his phone and the older man was stamping his feet and mock-examining the timetable and jiggling his eyebrows and twisting his face round to look at H like he was about to talk but H leaned away, leaned further round and saw through the smudged glass a large black tent to the back left of the stop. It was lurking in between spindly trees and beside it five smartly suited people, three men and two women, sat on portable plastic chairs observing the stop. He recognised the slick-haired man, who rose frowning to his feet, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. He saw the man turn to his colleagues and appear to apologise, hands pressing against the air in explanatory motions. Someone scribbled something on a sheet of paper attached to a clipboard. Then the group stood, folded up their plastic chairs, and disappeared into the tent.

'Number 14 been yet?' Smiled the rugged older plump of face.