Tales of the Night Bus

He finds his feet in the darkness, banging the clock radio to shut its relentless greetings. Shower, clothes, teeth, hair, breakfast toast and egg, 0420. The streets are clear except for dimming traffic lights and occasional trees, pigeons rule the road.

The bus stop flickers yellow and the game begins, N55 against the clock, the clock wins by 15. Doors swing open to the dead eyed driver, fare paid, up the perilous stairs to the top deck. 6 riders await, a pair of too beautiful twins catch the eye, he smiles, one does, the other rolls her eyes.

“Come with me to where the night bus ends”

Sits near the back, rests the cold glass against his face and watches the London pass by. Finally flicks through the easy pages of a soft novella, dark tails of death and despair conquered by an unlikely hero with a smoking pistol and a hot piece of ass.

At Shoreditch a pimp and his pale woman stumble between the benches. The strung out lines of a bad junkie lingers on their faces. She’s been places tonight, far out places and he scraped her off the floor more than once tonight and they’ll do it again like the money never happened.

Suddenly there she is, some soft, broken girl turned woman, dressed in black with hair to match that drapes her face and shoulders, sharing his bench. Her Madeline eyes lock his and her red lips open “Come with me to where the night bus ends”.

He sees himself with her hands in his and meets her face with one soft kiss, days of toil in warm climates and sweet wet nights under tropical stars promise. Browned skin in everlasting summer, the years would go, but there would always be happiness to be found in the same place.

The dream shuts violently as the bus jerks him from the sleep he had so easily slipped, and it is lost, she is lost, the night bus has taken her. The stop comes and he wrestles with the idea of not getting off, never getting off until he finds her again and makes things right again. But the night is done.