Remembering three people from yesterday...
A man in a fluorescent jacket, with fluffy hair and cheeks bunched under his eyes, standing at the same rail replacement bus stop as me, tells me yes I’m in the right place. Minutes before, someone, someone young he thinks, has been run over just up the road. We were both too late to witness it, yet we are caught inextricably in the horror of those long moments, eyes fixed on the ambulances, wondering why. He doesn’t get on the same bus as me, but smiles goodbye, sadly.
Hours later in Hackney, a cheery woman bus driver with an open face has half a cigarette at the bus stop waiting for a turbaned passenger to go to the brightly lit shop across the road before she sets off. I’m not taking her bus and she confides in me that she wants to give up smoking. She waves goodbye as the bus pulls away and I notice how it has suddenly got dark.
I just make it onto the tube, last leap through the last set of doors which are being held open by a crooked man on crutches, welcoming us aboard.He only has 64p he says, and I give him the shiny pence that I find at the bottom of my purse. Out of gratitude not guilt. As I get off at the next stop he calls after me have a safe journey home and I carry the words all the way, worth so much more than 15p.
No comments:
Post a Comment