Bus Journey

There’s some twat down the back of the bus playing some primitive dance music on his phone. The speaker’s crap, adding the horribly textured sound of paper being crumpled and torn into its unappeasing output.

I sit down, hopeful of the seat to myself (putting my bag on the place beside me as insurance) until arrival at the next stop where a large quantity of worker drones filter in and up the stairs, looking hopelessly as they try to figure out the best place to sit when it has to be beside someone they don’t know in the amount of time it takes to walk the length of the bus. Without looking stupid of course.

Guilt forces me to move my bag and the universe rewards by placing a rather large, and for some reason that couldn’t possibly be the temperature, sweaty, old man in a vest, shorts that end above the knee and an outback hat. I move as close to the window to be as far away from him as possible.



         The Twat still has the music playing but is also talking over it, arguing over the cost of cider to someone else. I inertly sigh and wonder why the hell earphones were invented. The man beside me inconsiderately does that thing that selfish and inconsiderate men do when they share seats – opens his legs as wide as possible, touching mine. I’m tempted to snap my own open like a spring and scream at the grunting Twat down the back as he highers the volume of the dreadful techno bollix for no reason that I can possibly discern other than he can’t hear it over the sound of his own “shh warrr”-ing voice.



         I sneak my foot slightly to the left, breaking contact discreetly, so as he doesn’t notice how disgusted I am by him.



         It starts to rain.



         Heavily.



         I watch a woman’s reflection on the window as she looks at herself in a makeup mirror, combing her hair in a desperate attempt to tame the wild individual strands. I kinda like her hair like that. It’s cute, but naturally sexy.



         I smile at some hidden-even-to-me humour and refocus, going back to looking at the rain drops racing down the glass.



         That one is quite fast.



         The Twat is now scrolling through the music. Half playing a song and then switching to another. All of them include remarks about sex and money by a heavy voice, countered by a digitally screened high pitched one.



         The woman who was combing her hair snaps the mirror shut and shoves it into her goldish-brown and rectangular handbag, roots around inside a bit, and takes out an iPod.



         My thoughts grumble bitch jealously.



         What could possibly make the Twat think it’s alright to impose his taste in music on thirty-odd other people?



         I hear the sound of the windows being shut down near him.



         Clearly his music is not enough. He also wants to add the smoke fumes that he has ejected out of himself into the lovely dish that I’m being presented with by Dublin Bus and Fate; sweaty half naked old guy who has no sense of personal space, or deodorant, served with baked amateur/failed DJ.



         And clearly the Environmentalists all must get car pools or cycle because if they knew that this was the norm for Irish public transport they wouldn’t frown so much at single drivers.



         A tree branch smacks against the side of the bus, appearing to be dragged down the length of it as we move away.



         Well done Mr. Driver.



         Nobody reacts. Well, except for the dreamers at the very front who jump.



         I hear the Twat getting louder, and then he passes by me, shouting to whoever he had been talking to, heading for the stairs. Every step he takes pounds on the plastic floor, as though he was made of solid steel. The part of me which suffers from superiority complex grins as I think he looks as dense as solid steel.



         Gracefully, (and to probably most of the passengers-starring-blindly-ahead’s gratitude) he stops the digital howling coming from his phone and shouts his number behind him as he swirls down the stairs – lazy enough to use only gravity.



         The little black sign at the front lights up in orange LEDs. Stopping.



         I look out the window. The Twat already has his hood up in the rain. I watch while the bus attempts to submerge itself back into the stream of relentless traffic. He bends away from the wind. There’s a short spark of light and then he’s walking away, another embering cigarette in hand.