Public Transport

I sit alone near the back of a route one bus. Blank metal walls surround me and I get the distinct feeling that this must be what it is like for a tinned sardine: cramped and marinating in the juices of your fellow passengers (though I imagine the smell would be preferable).

The Monotony of my surroundings is broken only by a few advertisments which I read aimlessly to pass the time. One has a picture of a woman sat on a similar but much cleaner bus, apparantly in a state of complete bliss. The reason for this I cannot imagine being the superb quality of her surroundings but probably the prospect of getting payed to pose for a photo on a bus. Another notice is for flu jabs designed no doubt by a group of men in suits wanting to take advantage of the current state of paranoia over the latest brand of the illness. According to the statistics it brandishes in bold red letters it appears to be for all who care for their lives the equivalent of the touch of Christ.

Again bored I find myself narrating a Discovery Channel style documentary in my head said in the mandatory Attenborough drone
"The Bus is a hugely diverse environment with many creatures coming from all over the area to use it's services" and so on. In my fictional documentary the compulsory drunk slumped mumbling to himself at the back of the bus is a queer representative of the leader of the pride gazing down from his vantage point over his kingdom.

In front of me are rows upon rows of uniform seats all with the same revolting, dull, multi-coloured covers, designed no doubt to disguise any stains (be it fast food, White Lightning or the vomit induced by it). The seats seem to me to share many similarities with the people sitting on them: ordered, used to maximum efficiency and desperate to hide any faults with mediocrity. Each person shares the common objective of trying to avoid any contact with another, pretending to read a newspaper or attend a bawling infant. This may be public transport but in spirit it seems there is nothing public about it.



Matthew Suter