I can feel the engine rattling through my tired bones. I've never broken one, but sometimes I wonder what it would be like; that shock of displacement, the fracture of wrongness inside one's own body, the what possibly could be short sharp pain coupled with the prospect of shaded recovery. I want to feel the warm, hard, bandage pressing against my skin, as it brings into existence that unsettling and yet so pleasant desire to itch away at what covers the cracked foundations which lie beneath.
I got on this bus on a whim, and I always sit at the back when it's empty, but even if there's one other person, a meek schoolboy, eagerly reading a textbook filled with twice as much words as are necessary, a loud, rude-sounding girl on her faux diamond-studded phone, or a humble middle aged woman in a slim fitting work suit... I just can't bear the thought of being in that almost detached space behind all the other seats, with someone other than myself. I like the slightly dented seats at the back. People have opted to sit there so many times, I almost feel like I'll sink into them and become one with the worn and faded patterns on the cheap, bought-in-bulk slightly grizzly fabric, the red and blue zig-zags now criss-crossing in all the wrong places, like some five year old's take on post-modern art. But I've been thinking lately, perhaps that's simply what all post-modern art is like.
That's not to say that I don't enjoy other people's company, but at times like these I prefer to be by myself. I can lean the left half of my face against the window and let it's plastic hand hold my head up, my mirror mother, scratched and scored with people's deepest desires and shallowest stupidities. I sometimes count the vulgarities and then the love hearts, and compare how many of each there are. Then I take my eyes outside, and let them lose focus on the endless blur of everything. The thin sheet of perspex is another pair of glasses which I wear, cancelling out the effects of the first. Now although nothing is clearly seen, everything seems to me clearly felt. The sounds can be heard much more easily, and although people's faces can't be made out with clarity, the way they walk reveals the way they feel.
But none of this matters, not now, not any more, as I can feel the floor shaking, and the pane pulsing against my flattened cheek, so I slowly lift my head and I knew it before I saw it, that someone else had also had the idea of sitting at the back, had put down their crocodile green, and most likely crocodile skin bag, obese and overflowing with mascara, foundation tubes, and various pencils, none of which appear to be intended for use on a form of canvas other than the face. As the bus stutters back into movement, a brush casually slips out from one of the outer pockets of the chunky bag and falls to the floor with a small, but distinct, patter. Not as rain would, but more like a rehearsed mother's 'tut', practised and developed over time to indicate disappointment or irritation. It rolls almost perfectly in time with the buses stumbles over the potholes, and lays to rest against a lime green, rounded closed-toe heel. It reminded me of a one of those glossy pull out pages in the otherwise dull and wafer thin cheap fashion magazines, the ones that people never admit to reading but rush through intensely to find the photo of that one coat, cardigan or clutch bag which had the honour of being printed on that shiny, almost liquid-like, surface. As the bus coughed over a speed bump, the pencil miraculously managed to wedge itself in between the heel and the sole. The owner of this bright piece of footwear must have either seen this, or noticed it in another way, for a few seconds after this minor misfortune, I heard a real 'tut', one which either implied a cold or sore throat, or else belonged to a deep contralto, maybe a mother whose years of smoking had deepened her voice greatly, a mother who was immensely annoyed by the actions of her eldest daughter, the heel, and her youngest, the pencil, and had spent years rehearsing that one syllable, only to perform it now on an almost empty bus with someone desperately trying to avoid eye contact as the single member of the audience.
But it seems this person, with their electric green shoes and bag simply millimetres away from bursting it's banks, is determined to get in my field of vision no matter how hard I try. Just before I lift my head, intending to strategically take a long blink until I can feel the harsh hard coldness of the window against my cheek, thus reducing my chance of looking at this mystery heel-wearer to a single digit number, a hand, slightly larger than average, scrambles around on the floor like a desperate, bald, pale five-legged tarantula, and I notice that the nails have been lavished with layers of grassy colouring, translucently sickly in the late afternoon light. So perhaps a five-legged tarantula, wearing five pairs of grass green pumps, in keeping with the theme of the post-modern, and performing an interpretative dance, with the stimuli being the blurred and battered patterns on the seat-covers. It's not long before the long, slender fingers make contact with the slightly more long and slender barrel of the pencil, and in one sweeping simultaneous movement, they grasp it at their tips and the leg which until now had been like a dormant pillar, rises smoothly, and the pencil is now firmly in the palm of the hand which saved it from another embarrassing, annoying, tumble to the grainy linoleum-like material of the bus floor.
So I follow what seems to now be this floating spider, flying up from the feet through the air, or maybe climbing some invisible thread, until I see the arm which it is attached to, hidden under a cylindrical sheath of slate grey wool. Of course, the assumption is made that it's an arm. For all I know it could be a rattlesnake, which would explain the almost festive jangling which seems to emanate from an area above the knees, above the thick skin colour tights which hide all skin from the foot to the knee, where the lower legs themselves meet an oppressive end in the mesh of a dark blue, almost black, chiffon skirt. Maybe beneath the sleeve there is a snake, maybe the entire person is just a interlocking collection of snakes and nothing more, hence the skin colour tights, giving the impression that underneath the delicate fabric there lies indeed human body parts, and not a conflagration of serpents.
Strapping the chiffon tightly to this possible half-reptile is a dull, dusty grey belt. This noose-around-the-waist seems out of place against the meticulously near neon shades which surround it. Even the black elasticated waistband manages to outshine it's buckle's grim feeble grin. It simply sits there, an old, unnecessary and abandoned airport runway in the midst of a tropical forest, nearly lost in the swathes of leaves and ways of the trees. I can already imagine the response were I to enquire about it, a long twisted story involving half-lies and half-His and half-Goodbyes, with the word vintage shoved relentlessly into ever single gap which remains. As the pencil makes it way up and beyond the runway, I can see that the navy-esque colour continues on both sides of it. The nib accidentally grazes the bottom of the silky shirt, nearly being caught by it's lowest visible button, and it tilts towards the window, and for the split-second before the tubular anti-submarine continues it's submerged journey dislodges itself from the circular, ridged reef, it glints in the late-afternoon sun, almost winks in my direction, but then all too quickly the moment is gone, the button's shine lost in the sheer slipperiness of the ocean which it drifts on.
I count four more buttons before they abruptly end, but those four seemed to last hours to pass me by, the deep blue gloss never rising, never falling, the vertical horizon never disturbed.
The shock of skin (which seems indeed to be human, and not reptilian) nearly hurts my eyes, the paleness which is almost glaring at me soon fades to a comfortable, neutral caucasian. The collarbones too seem to be thrusting outwards, like the safety bars on a roller-coaster, comforting and yet so confining in that box-like, excited space.
I got on this bus on a whim, and I always sit at the back when it's empty, but even if there's one other person, a meek schoolboy, eagerly reading a textbook filled with twice as much words as are necessary, a loud, rude-sounding girl on her faux diamond-studded phone, or a humble middle aged woman in a slim fitting work suit... I just can't bear the thought of being in that almost detached space behind all the other seats, with someone other than myself. I like the slightly dented seats at the back. People have opted to sit there so many times, I almost feel like I'll sink into them and become one with the worn and faded patterns on the cheap, bought-in-bulk slightly grizzly fabric, the red and blue zig-zags now criss-crossing in all the wrong places, like some five year old's take on post-modern art. But I've been thinking lately, perhaps that's simply what all post-modern art is like.
That's not to say that I don't enjoy other people's company, but at times like these I prefer to be by myself. I can lean the left half of my face against the window and let it's plastic hand hold my head up, my mirror mother, scratched and scored with people's deepest desires and shallowest stupidities. I sometimes count the vulgarities and then the love hearts, and compare how many of each there are. Then I take my eyes outside, and let them lose focus on the endless blur of everything. The thin sheet of perspex is another pair of glasses which I wear, cancelling out the effects of the first. Now although nothing is clearly seen, everything seems to me clearly felt. The sounds can be heard much more easily, and although people's faces can't be made out with clarity, the way they walk reveals the way they feel.
But none of this matters, not now, not any more, as I can feel the floor shaking, and the pane pulsing against my flattened cheek, so I slowly lift my head and I knew it before I saw it, that someone else had also had the idea of sitting at the back, had put down their crocodile green, and most likely crocodile skin bag, obese and overflowing with mascara, foundation tubes, and various pencils, none of which appear to be intended for use on a form of canvas other than the face. As the bus stutters back into movement, a brush casually slips out from one of the outer pockets of the chunky bag and falls to the floor with a small, but distinct, patter. Not as rain would, but more like a rehearsed mother's 'tut', practised and developed over time to indicate disappointment or irritation. It rolls almost perfectly in time with the buses stumbles over the potholes, and lays to rest against a lime green, rounded closed-toe heel. It reminded me of a one of those glossy pull out pages in the otherwise dull and wafer thin cheap fashion magazines, the ones that people never admit to reading but rush through intensely to find the photo of that one coat, cardigan or clutch bag which had the honour of being printed on that shiny, almost liquid-like, surface. As the bus coughed over a speed bump, the pencil miraculously managed to wedge itself in between the heel and the sole. The owner of this bright piece of footwear must have either seen this, or noticed it in another way, for a few seconds after this minor misfortune, I heard a real 'tut', one which either implied a cold or sore throat, or else belonged to a deep contralto, maybe a mother whose years of smoking had deepened her voice greatly, a mother who was immensely annoyed by the actions of her eldest daughter, the heel, and her youngest, the pencil, and had spent years rehearsing that one syllable, only to perform it now on an almost empty bus with someone desperately trying to avoid eye contact as the single member of the audience.
But it seems this person, with their electric green shoes and bag simply millimetres away from bursting it's banks, is determined to get in my field of vision no matter how hard I try. Just before I lift my head, intending to strategically take a long blink until I can feel the harsh hard coldness of the window against my cheek, thus reducing my chance of looking at this mystery heel-wearer to a single digit number, a hand, slightly larger than average, scrambles around on the floor like a desperate, bald, pale five-legged tarantula, and I notice that the nails have been lavished with layers of grassy colouring, translucently sickly in the late afternoon light. So perhaps a five-legged tarantula, wearing five pairs of grass green pumps, in keeping with the theme of the post-modern, and performing an interpretative dance, with the stimuli being the blurred and battered patterns on the seat-covers. It's not long before the long, slender fingers make contact with the slightly more long and slender barrel of the pencil, and in one sweeping simultaneous movement, they grasp it at their tips and the leg which until now had been like a dormant pillar, rises smoothly, and the pencil is now firmly in the palm of the hand which saved it from another embarrassing, annoying, tumble to the grainy linoleum-like material of the bus floor.
So I follow what seems to now be this floating spider, flying up from the feet through the air, or maybe climbing some invisible thread, until I see the arm which it is attached to, hidden under a cylindrical sheath of slate grey wool. Of course, the assumption is made that it's an arm. For all I know it could be a rattlesnake, which would explain the almost festive jangling which seems to emanate from an area above the knees, above the thick skin colour tights which hide all skin from the foot to the knee, where the lower legs themselves meet an oppressive end in the mesh of a dark blue, almost black, chiffon skirt. Maybe beneath the sleeve there is a snake, maybe the entire person is just a interlocking collection of snakes and nothing more, hence the skin colour tights, giving the impression that underneath the delicate fabric there lies indeed human body parts, and not a conflagration of serpents.
Strapping the chiffon tightly to this possible half-reptile is a dull, dusty grey belt. This noose-around-the-waist seems out of place against the meticulously near neon shades which surround it. Even the black elasticated waistband manages to outshine it's buckle's grim feeble grin. It simply sits there, an old, unnecessary and abandoned airport runway in the midst of a tropical forest, nearly lost in the swathes of leaves and ways of the trees. I can already imagine the response were I to enquire about it, a long twisted story involving half-lies and half-His and half-Goodbyes, with the word vintage shoved relentlessly into ever single gap which remains. As the pencil makes it way up and beyond the runway, I can see that the navy-esque colour continues on both sides of it. The nib accidentally grazes the bottom of the silky shirt, nearly being caught by it's lowest visible button, and it tilts towards the window, and for the split-second before the tubular anti-submarine continues it's submerged journey dislodges itself from the circular, ridged reef, it glints in the late-afternoon sun, almost winks in my direction, but then all too quickly the moment is gone, the button's shine lost in the sheer slipperiness of the ocean which it drifts on.
I count four more buttons before they abruptly end, but those four seemed to last hours to pass me by, the deep blue gloss never rising, never falling, the vertical horizon never disturbed.
The shock of skin (which seems indeed to be human, and not reptilian) nearly hurts my eyes, the paleness which is almost glaring at me soon fades to a comfortable, neutral caucasian. The collarbones too seem to be thrusting outwards, like the safety bars on a roller-coaster, comforting and yet so confining in that box-like, excited space.
