I am sitting on the top deck of the 171 bus
and something is meowing and everyone
is pretending not to hear it,
If there is a wild cat in here we’re all
dead!
A man has got on board holding a paper bag
of market stall fish.
If he sits near me….
He has sat behind me, my Britishness is
keeping me quiet and I am wishing I belonged to a language more culturally assertive,
but I think it’s ok because I haven’t heard the meowing for a while.
Maybe it was in my head; maybe it was the
ghost of the fur coat the woman in front of me is wearing…
Now the bus is passing a car crash and a
small Chinese man is standing with two police officers in the middle of the
road, he is telling what happened in interpretive
dance, as he star jumps into the air to gesture an explosion.
As the bus turns into the next lane a fox
runs into the middle of the road
and we swerve but everyone is remaining
British, and I do not mean we were in fox hunting gear, or we started drinking
tea, I mean, we are quiet until a man’s phone rings and he picks up
(“Bonjour’”) speaking French, and I am wondering what’s his excuse for being quiet all this time?
maybe he has been here too long,
maybe that is what he is saying in French
right now,
Marcel,
Je suis ici depuis trop longtemps!
I have been here too long!
At the next bus stop a man gets on and in
an American accent asks
fur coat lady if there is a real place
called Pimlico because he can’t believe it
and now… I can hear the meowing
again.
TFL Travel Update -
On Wednesday 18th April at 6pm, the 171 bus will be on diversion. This is due to a road closure as a result of Baroness Thatcher's funeral.
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