Waiting for the Bus

Waiting for the Bus

Have a look at the image, think about the different people, where they are going or coming from and write either their internal monologue while they wait for the bus or a story about them.

Faith Freshwater:

The bus stop acts a waypoint for tides of people; huddling together through peaks and dispersing through lulls. New adventurers and experienced public transporters alike embark together for a short time before branching out on their own paths once more. Everyone has their own story and it’s impossible to know what any of them are. Not the mother of two with her screaming children, and definitely not the tired old woman replacing the colour her hair has lost with a brightly sequined coat. The moustached man with his deep frown and dark coat hides his secrets in the set of his brows.

The moods of a bus stop fluctuate with the moon. Drunken laughter in the early hours of the morning, or subdued shivering as people wait under cover from the rain. Loud phone calls or awkward scrolling through apps in an effort to avoid anyone’s eyes. Excitement to get out into the world and have fun, or exhaustion at the prospect of the long trek home from work.

Layers of jumpers, coats, scarves, and beanies in colder months. Shorter pants and lower cut shirts in warmer months, swathes of sun-soaked skin. Always bags no matter the season; scattered across the ground or being protectively held by arms tired from long days walking through the city centre.

Anika Novak:

Feeling ever so slightly awkward at the long wait they were in for, the Council for the Sewing of General Chaos (Literal Seamstress Division) struggled to find a topic that would not bring the minds of their fellow bus-stop-waiters to an immediate meltdown.

“Ah, Susanna, how is your garden doing?” asked the Caller of the Void, Henrietta Benson.

“Well my carrots all died but the hallucinogenic mushroom variant is doing extremely well, I’m sure it’ll be perfect for… well… you know.” replied Susanna “Toxic” Waterstilll.

“Let’s not talk about your garden of illegal substances anymore, Susanna” dismissed Irene Blackwood the Burnt One.

“What about your grandchildren, Myrtle?” Susanna tried to start up the conversation again.

“They’re still dead, as they have been for the past eight years, Susanna.”

“Oh. Oh dear.”

“This is the eighty-fourth time you’ve asked me that question this year, and you have given the same answer forty-eight times out of the six-hundred and fifty-two total times we’ve had this conversation, Susanna,” Myrtle paused for a moment.

“Not that it matters. The bedlam of life is the order of universal will. It is by the will of chaos that they are dead, and so dead they shall remain until it sees fit to change the shifting state of the world once more.”

“By the will of chaos, it is so,” chorused the women, hauntingly in synch, startling the older man leaning on the plastic divider of the bus stop.