Dangers of wandering
I didn't take the bus I ought to have taken and worried a little about how to navigate east, wondering how reliable my memory is given the destination I had in mind.
A woman with a shock of red-brown hair stood next to me, the skin on her face sagging a little from age. She wore a great big rust-coloured jacket (almost everyone is wearing big jackets now) and in one hand she carried a large, bulging plastic bag. There was nothing out of the ordinary about her appearance, it was just that she appeared to be murmuring continually, perpetually carrying on a conversation with someone. I thought she was speaking to the girl who was seated just in front of her, but the other certainly wasn't responding when she appeared to ask questions.
Suddenly I caught her saying a familiar name, shortly followed by "Australia". I froze. I could have misheard, surely? Then she said, "What are you going to do?"
What am I going to do? I don't really know.
I lingered on the bus for one more stop with the intention to see what else she would say, but she moved up to the front of the bus, still murmuring. We got off together and she headed south. I watched her trundle along the path, caught somewhere between puzzlement and wonder, and reluctantly began to find my way to where I wanted to go.
Posted by sniffles at October 24, 2002 11:28 AM