she was so pretty. her dark hair was much too young to show the slightest fleck of grey. it rested on her shoulders with that total glamour that only a woman who never has to try can achieve. her skin carried just a very faint bloom of warmth. as i saw her i noticed that she noticed me too. she shyly looked away.
i was only too glad to get my foot onto the step. it was freezing. that the wind was howling through the bus shelter was hardly surprising. altho it took me a little while i eventually realised as i leant on the side of the structure that there was nothing there. some spotty little jerk had completely removed at least one of the non glass windows. on a particularly cold day this bad samaritan had painfully exposed us to the elements.
he may not have been spotty actually. he may not even have been a 'he'. but whoever had shifted that plastic vandal-proof windbreak was definitely a jerk. probably with the cosmic equivalent of acne all over its spiteful little soul.
i couldn't wait. the bus shuddered to a halt, the doors clattered open and i was in.
i'm not even sure i was first in the queue. i wasn't last. the last was a short and broad lady whose face peered out from head to ankle black. i've met her previously. english is not her first language. however we usually manage to swap a couple of smiles. and this time consensus on the temperature.
the other waitee, well what else am i going to call her? she was neither a waiter nor a waitress obviously, was also well padded. about 20 she wore enough metal studs in her face to convince me to be anywhere else but near her in the event of a lightning strike. if she went off, things i felt sure could have got really messy.
i did try a touch of verbal on her but, with the faint audio hiss from her headphones leaking into the wind, she just wasn't in my sound space. exiled by her life choices i excluded her from my universe too.
i got up next to the driver. he seemed fairly pally which was good on a grim day. they aren't always. but in this part of town attitude usually earns more attitude in return. best to leave it out of the equation altogether. he printed out my ticket. i said thanks. he grunted. which is polite for a bus driver.
i'd paid for my ride. i held my ticket in my warming little hand and looked down the bus. round there everybody uses public transport. good for them. the vehicle was wedged. oh well not the end of the world. i'd stand. no problem.
my eyes fell on the girl at the front again. we had connected. no two ways about it.
obviously this was one of those happy serendipities that punctuate one's life. just like when i was fourteen and getting on the bus home from school. then the girl by the door had been much older than me. with her PVC mac, auburn brown hair and melting eyes she must have been sixteen at the very least. possibly even seventeen. i did nothing. i knew when i was romantically out gunned. faced with the promise of an older woman i bottled it. i may have started a poem later about the sad eyed bus seat lady. that also went nowhere.
here we were in the here and now. life chances very seldom happen twice i told myself, but you never know. my attention came back to her just hers seemed to come back to me. i may even have started in her direction.
whether i did or not i know for a fact that she began to move towards me. absolutely no mistake. she moved and just kept coming. instinctively i turned to face her. anticipating her heart beating feet, then inches away from my own, i held my breath.
next moment she was on her feet ...... moving back down the bus to find somewhere to stand as she offered me her seat.
© Patrick Ellis February 2013
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