Passenger Confessions – Thursday

The driver inspects Elsie’s bus pass. Cracks a joke about keeping warm and closes the doors.
Elsie takes a seat to review today’s passengers. Each face carries its own exhaustion, except the man who sits beside her grinning.

‘You want a sweetie?’ she says and offers him a small rusty tin containing Werther’s Originals. He takes two, slowly unwraps the first and smiles.

‘At least the rain’s held off,’ he says chewing the second sweet.
‘When you’ve lived as long as I have, rain’s a blessing,’ Elsie says.

A man standing in the aisle clutches his hands, timber stiff. Elsie glances, then turns away.
His eyes are dark with grief. His zero-hours job is a force he cannot ignore when he should be at home mourning with his partner. Their child barely cold in the grave, he trembles. Why? He repeats silently, the mantra worn, old and pointless.

‘Can I have another sweet?’ the man next to Elsie asks like a child.

She takes the tin out and opens it. He helps himself. Elsie notices him lifting her purse from her bag. When he shuffles to get off she takes his hand.

‘There’s nothing in that purse. Receipts mostly, oh and a picture of your father…

Robbing your own mother, for God’s sake Tony, get out of my sight. You’re a nasty piece of work.’

This is their first interaction in years. Disappointment leaks from her. Like a horse sweating at the Grand National.

The woman behind her tuts, shakes her head and taps Elsie on the shoulder.

‘I know him,’ she says, giving Elsie that look. ‘He’s always up to no good that one.’

A tear runs down Elsie’s cheek.

Zero hours man takes the empty seat next to her. His head down, eyes fixed. His tears hit the floor.

Their silent rain forms a shared pool of hopelessness.