Structo issue 13

where all these people are coming from. That’s a stupid thought, he thinks.

They’re coming from everywhere. Coming to the city where the jobs are.

They’re packed in this morning, like every morning. There’s a man just the other side of the plexiglass shouting into his phone. Another with headphones so loud it sounds like he’s wearing them inside out. There was an argument upstairs a few minutes before he saw the French woman. He couldn’t hear it, but he saw it on the cctv: two women, one white, one black. He didn’t know what they were arguing about, and is just grateful that they didn’t start punching each other. He hates it when people ght on his bus. All the passengers think you can stop it, just because you’re the driver. But what’s he supposed to do, a skinny 68-year-old man? Stop the bus and wait for the police? No one’s going to thank him for that.

But it hasn’t happened this morning, not yet, anyway, so he tries not to worry about it. That was another thing Dr Kaur had said, to try not to worry about things that haven’t happened. Dr Kaur’s very sympathetic, but he wonders what the point of such obvious advice is. If it was as easy as icking a switch, he’d stop worrying about it all straight away.

‘You don’t have to put up with it, Ron.’ The same voice as before, condent but patient.

‘What?’ He mouths the word silently, hoping none of his passengers is looking at him, knowing they’ve all got too much on their plate to care about him talking to himself, talking to this voice that’s gatecrashed his mind. He doesn’t have the energy to question what it’s doing there, if the words are coming from his own mind or somewhere else. Stress, he thinks, that’s all, just stress. Something else to tell the specialist.

‘You can get out. Out of here. Out of this. Out. Like David. A better place. Better than this.’

He shakes his head, wipes away a tear that edges onto his cheek.

Sensitive eyes, he thinks, always had sensitive eyes.

The trafc edges forward. He approaches the stop. They’re digging up the pavement here now too. People step onto the road to get past the queue. A bike swerves to avoid a pedestrian and bangs hard into his front door, bounces away, wobbles, gets his balance and sprints off, disappearing into the narrow gap on the left of that 87. He checks for other cyclists, indicates, then stops. He knows he shouldn’t open his door, that he hasn’t really got room for everyone, they’ve been over the ofcial limit since the arts centre, but he doesn’t have the heart to stop people getting on. It’s impossible to check if everyone’s touching in; there’s too many of them, coming in two rows. There’s not enough room for them all, but they nd a way; they always do. Better to have your arms pinned to your side, your 