Bus Stop
By Terrence Oblong
- 1993 reads
I got to the bus stop ten minutes early just in case. There's nothing worse than seeing your bus passing by before you get to the stop and having to wait for the next one, especially as it's an hourly service. I had such a busy day ahead losing an hour would be tragic.
The bus shelter was taken away a few years ago, so there's nowhere to go if it rains now, there's just a little sign with the word 'bus' on it in red paint. In fact the writing's non-too-good and it looks more like '6v5' but that's the great thing about human communication, everyone knows it means 'bus' even if it actually says '6v5'. That's the only reason doctor's prescriptions haven't wiped us all out.
I had a book to read as well, so it wasn't as if I was going to get bored waiting. A science fiction novel, it's all I read, though this particular piece of sci fi was set on earth in the present day. Most of the action takes place, oddly enough, at a bus stop. A badly hand-written bus-stop sign is spotted by a passing flying saucer and mistaken for an insult to their dear queen (they were a bee-like race). The resultant war wipes out all bar the last few inhabitants of the Earth (the aliens were also all wiped out - they'd used their stings you see).
That's all in the first chapter. I hadn't got very far with it yet, it often takes a while to get to know the characters. That's what great literature is all about - character. Oh, and intergalactic wars obviously. I love intergalactic wars.
I had my whole day planned out in detail - well I don't often go to town, so it's best to plan carefully.
I'd call in and visit aunt June before I did anything else. I had to pass on my mother's thanks for the blackcurrent jam she made last year (mum loves making jam but aunt June is the only one who'll ever eat it), besides which I hadn't seen my cousin Rory since he was so high. Oh, sorry - I'm not used to this writing lark - I hadn't seen my cousin Rory since he was 5 foot and 2 inches high. I knew Rory would be in as it was school holidays and he'd be at home doing his marking, preparing lessons - that sort of thing.
After visiting June and Rory I was going to hurry into the town centre, as I had a great deal of shopping to do. I needed to buy a complete new set of clothes, it was so long since I had last been to town - I'm so out of fashion I look like I've stepped out of a costume drama. I still cast a shadow can you believe - even last year's fashion is shadow free, the way it's going I'll be back in fashion before I get a new costume.
I allocated a full three hours for shopping. In addition to clothes I also needed to get some new eyes, I was particularly keen to get a pair with neo-realism filter lenses. My 'happy-go-lucky' filter was wearing thin and I desperately needed to see the world in a new light, besides which my faulty filter had got me in more trouble than I care to recount. One day, perhaps, some canny author will be wise enough to recognise that there's a novel in my poorly-perceived early life and all these stories will be told, but until then we must make do with this. With me waiting for a bus.
There's a frustrating period about 12 to 13 minutes after the bus is due when you are forced to ponder whether you should just give up, go home, have a cup of tea, possibly even an accompanying bun, and then rush back for the next bus. Of course, there are two risks with this strategy. Firstly, that you leave your place at the stop only for the bus to go by just as you reach the bottom of the hill. Or, secondly, that you're so enjoying your tea and bun that you let time sneak past you (time you see wears the trendiest of clothes and consequently leaves no shadow as he passes) and leg it desperately to the stop, only to see the next bus easing past.
Sometimes, of course, both happen. It's on those type of days that you wish we were still allowed cars.
On this day though I daren't leave the stop for a cup of tea and a bun, my schedule was far too hectic to take any risk.
After shopping I planned to go to the tea rooms at the centre of town and feast like there was no tomorrow, and feasting like there was no tomorrow usually takes approximately and hour and seven minutes, which really eats into your day.
I placed my faith in the gods (and government) to deliver a bus unto me (I knew from past experience that if the bus came the government would take the credit, but if it didn't it would be blamed on "the wrong kind of god" controlling the traffic that day).
At approximately 22 minutes after the bus was due I had to accept that it would not come, which meant an hour off my schedule. This was a pain, as I had so much to do before the gig and it wasn't as if I had any time after the gig, as Tom was taking me to a party, where he said there would be alcohol and girls.
It was a long time since I had seen a girl and I was most excited by the prospect. This was why I needed to shop before the gig, no woman would look at me if they could see my shadow. Shadows are so ugly, deformed and mutated versions of ourselves, I can only wonder how the olders managed to copulate with their shadows gyrating mutatedly around them. Of course, I myself had never experienced copulation, which was why I was so desperate to be appropriately clad. This was going to be my night, I could feel it, the gods in charge that would see to it.
With another 38 minutes to wait for the next bus I began to plan a revised schedule, taking into account the lost hour. I realised that I would not have time to eat at the tea rooms after all; grazing would save at least half an hour. I could turn up at the gig 15 minutes later than planned, which would mean I had to finish my shopping in two hours and 45 minutes, which was tight but doable.
Time passes unbelievably slowly in those minutes between the times when one bus has been missed and the next is due. I tried to read my book, but it turned out not to be a science fiction novel at all, just another piece of meaningless romance involving the last two people left alive on earth. That meant yet another task in town, buying a novel to read on the way home.
I have to admit that I was slightly worried that with one bus cancelled the next would be too full and would pass by without stopping. That had happened before now and there was nothing you could do about it. I was pacing around with worry by this stage, I always get nervous when there's a bus due; the anticipation of the journey and the ensuing day of pleasure mixed with a horrifying fear that perhaps it might not come at all. Which it didn't………..
Oh my luck. Two buses in succession cancelled. Why did they not come? Was there a chronic sickness amongst drivers that day, an outbreak of food-poisoning in the bus station canteen? I remember reading about a bus company in Hereford that had poisoned all its drivers in order not to have to pay them. Maybe all the drivers were dead? In which case no bus would ever come.
I almost panicked and rushed home for tea and buns and a chance to change books; but I remained calm and remained at my stop. A bus would come that day and I would get on and I would have my trip into town. I just had to revise my schedule again, then everything would be fine.
On reflection I decided not to visit June and Rory on this occasion. Later in the year my mother will have made more jam and I would have to visit them then in order to get rid of it. Perhaps I could buy a present for June in town to thank her, some wine perhaps. Wine is like an alcoholic drink, but made in such a way that women can drink it.
I bided my time patiently. A bus passed by in the opposite direction, evidence that there were some buses running. This one was no use to me of course, as it didn't stop and wasn't going anywhere. The driver waved at me as he passed, perhaps wishing that he had passengers of his own.
To amuse myself I started counting the gaps in my memory. 23rd February 2011, I had no idea at all what happened that day. That's the problem with a happy-go-lucky filter, it can just blank out the bad days. March of that year is also a mystery, though for some strange reason I want to associate it with the name Sarah. Did I ever know a Sarah?
With time thus fully occupied the next bus was nearly due and I again trembled with anticipation. The anticipation led nowhere. When my bus was five minutes overdue the other bus passed by again on the other side of the road, the driver waved again in recognition and this time I waved back. So far today he was the only human being I'd seen, as if we were the last two people alive on planet Earth. Sorry, letting my imagination run away with me, it's all these books I read.
When my bus was 19 minutes late I realised that it would never come. I kicked a stone in irritation and it rattled along the road erratically until it fell into a pothole. My shopping trip was going to be seriously curtailed.
And so the day passed. At one point it looked as if somebody was going to join me waiting at the stop, but it was just a mirage. I sometimes imagine things if I haven't eaten, I began to wish that I had gone back home for that tea and bun. But the mirage soon passed and I was alone again.
I changed plans and schedules again and again. Eventually I decided to give up the shopping trip, I'd just have to go to the gig and party in my old clothes and hope that shadows were back in fashion. Even if my clothing disgusted the trendy girls I saw, at the very least I would get to see them, oh the images it would leave me with, girls without shadows. I'd never seen a girl without her shadow.
More buses became due and more buses failed to arrive. I would miss the gig, I would have to live without the music and I had so looked forward to the music. The band were bringing instruments and everything, but maybe I would see them another day. The rumour was that they hoped to play in the town EVERY year.
I waited all day and into the night, happy to catch even the last bus so that I could at least go to the party and see some girls. Oh to see girls, it had been so long now. It was at least four months since a bus had come, though I waited every day, and without the bus I could see no-one.
Eventually it was time for the last bus, my last hope of party and girls and the life outside this place. I watched the minutes pass by with heaviness in my heart. Of course, I reasoned, the bus was sure to be late, as it would be stopping to pick up a whole day's worth of passengers. I was determined not to miss it by walking off too soon, that sort of behaviour only irks the more mischievous gods into playing more tricks on you, but another hour passed and I reasoned that my chance had passed. I gave up and walked towards home.
Just as I reached the bottom of the hill I turned, saying a final farewell to the hopes I'd had at the start of the day, in the darkness of night my dreams and expectations looked so foolish, of course there could be no party, of course there could be no new clothes, no new eyes. But what was that? In the distance a heard a faint hum of old motor engine and sure enough there was the bus, it had come after all. From the bottom of the hill I stood and watched it go past on its way to town. One day I will be there when it comes, one day.
- Log in to post comments
Comments
Imaginative, funny and sad.
- Log in to post comments
I loved this. I felt it
- Log in to post comments
Liked it, especially the
- Log in to post comments
I loved this too, and I
- Log in to post comments
Really enjoyed the antsy
- Log in to post comments
It's our tweet of the day.
- Log in to post comments