Bus Time

The weekly bus that carries the old ones from the village to do their weekly shop fills with shaken umbrellas and eager tales of morbidity. You know those water tablets that Jane’s been taking for her blood? Well they’ve affected her kidneys now, and she’s got oedema. You should see her ankles: like balloons, they are. The rain has stopped, the sun dazzles the seats around me, warming the air and our faces; beads glisten down the windows; the driver hums a tune; the journey smiles. Janet found a growth – it turned out benign but she fell and broke her wrist. I’m doing her shopping. And as for Billy’s verruca . . . Well! The sun has failed to shun the cloudy conversation, gives up, ushers back the rain. Rain is happy here: cheer is so obviously no substitute for this bus-time babble. Sickness over health is preferred. I push my earphones further in, crank up the volume and enjoy that radio hospital drama I downloaded yesterday.