Tales From A Bus by jwilson136 (finding audrey TXT) 📕

suggested that I try it as it helps keep my mind busy and take stock me from thinking about things that my be nagging at the back of your mind. Dr.Wilson believes that migraines are caused solely by stress. Every doctor I’ve been to believes that something different causes them, with some it’s food, some it’s animals others believe that it’s all due to exercise or in my case lack of it but... oh sure you don’t want to hear this. It’s not really that important but I was just telling you in case you find that sort of thing interesting.
When I was finished I did what I always do next, I looked around the bus at all the people and wondered to myself how they were getting on in life, you know just something to pass the time.
My job pays well enough but with a wife and three kids to support and holidays to plan for in the summer it’s too expensive for me to live too near the city. Twelve miles out is as close as it gets for myself and Pat. The journey can sometimes take awhile and I can only read the paper for a few minutes at a time without feeling sick so I always take a little time in between paper reads to see if there is anyone interesting on the bus. Today it seemed initially that my luck was out and if it had stayed that way I guess I wouldn’t be talking to you today but it didn’t and I am talking, as strange as this seems I am talking.
The bus was kind of empty, not too many passengers at all on the upper level anyway and I didn’t at first recognise any of them. But one young boy grabbed my attention almost straight away. You see while I didn’t exactly know where from I could have sworn that I knew the guy. He was about eight or so year old and sat on his own. He was sitting across from me and was staring straight ahead. I felt that he was a bit young to riding the bus on his own but then I figured that it was a long while since I’d been eight years old and kids grow up a hell of a lot quicker nowadays. I found myself staring at the boy for maybe minutes at a time racking my brain for how the hell I knew him. For a long while I was sure that it was from television, and almost convinced myself that he was one of the young boys on the Fair City soap show that Pat was so fond of, but I couldn’t be sure as I never really watch the show and any part of it I did see was always over the top of my dinner or book and what I did see I never really paid it that much attention. But after a few more minutes of careful study I was sure that it wasn’t from Fair City that this kid came from. Something was bugging me about him all the same, what had started as a simple way to kill a few minutes between pages of the paper was now beginning to get on my nerves. Like when someone asks you Who sings this song or What was the name of the film with your man in it ? Things that you know you should know, hell things that you do know but you just don’t know if you get my meaning. The face of this boy was beginning to get my temperature up a bit and I knew that I would not get an inch of rest until I matched the name with the face.
I guessed that I must have been looking at the boy for a little too long and glanced away quickly. Now I’m a happily married man but nowadays people just can’t be too careful. Next thing you know I could have ten people on the bus all accusing me of abusing the boy by ‘undressing him with my eyes’, believe me I’ve heard of things like that happening. I looked around the rest of the bus as casual as I could just to see if anyone had noticed me but everybody seemed caught up in their own little world. But there wasn’t that something, sitting behind me and to my right was a woman whose face I did know. She was...her name was......do you think I could think of her name ? Not a hope. Her face was even more familiar than the boys and I had definitely seen her on TV, perhaps she did the weather on the RTE news ? Or maybe she did that consumer watchdog show ? No the face didn’t fit but I knew it would. Give me a few minutes and I’d have her name. You see I have a great memory for faces but not names, I’m none too good on names. I moved away from the woman confident that she wouldn’t prove to be stumbling block and went back to the boy. All this mental activity was beginning to excite my migraine and I could feel it really begin to simmer. I also knew that it would carry on simmering (and maybe even boil over) until I got the young kids name. For the time being I messaged the back of my neck in the hope that it would provide some relief. It never did but I never stopped hoping. Still something was bugging me about the kid, and I don’t mean what his name was, there was something else wrong with him.
It took me perhaps ten more painful minutes to figure out what was wrong with him. All this time my headache continued to grow until it had almost reached the unbearable level. It was now at the stage where all migraines sufferers dread, the stage where they know that it is not going to go away and that the sickness may well be soon arriving to keep it company. But I still managed to figure out what was bugging me about the kid.
For a start he was dressed in a school uniform but he had no school bag. I looked on the seat beside him and on the floor by his feet but no bag, which was odd. Like what type of school kid was he if he had no bag ? The second was the uniform. It looked well out of date. The uniform itself looked like it was ten years or more old. At first I just assumed that he was from a poor family and that it was handed down from one brother to the next but the odd thing was that the uniform didn’t look worn at all. Truth be told it looked new and I mean so new that I could make out the pleats in the trousers and the fine cut of the shirt. So if the uniform had been passed down from one brother to another they must have really taken exceptionally good care of it down through the years. But that was impossible, even normal wear and tear would mean that if it was as dated as it seemed it would have long since torn. No there was something else wrong I just could not figure what.
There was also the name of the blonde haired American that sat behind me. All of a sudden I got the idea that she was American, just all a sudden it was in my head. She was American and her first name was Ann or Anne or something like that. My head throbbed. I had reached the throbbing stage, it’s when you feel as if your brain has become a heart and it beating so hard that it actually wants to hatch out from your skull. Still I was sure that the girl was American and was called Ann or Anne. Then I saw the old man.
I actually felt sick when I first saw him but I guessed that the headache was getting a lot worse a lot quicker than I even I had expected it to. The vomit rose into my mouth and I had to quickly close my mouth to stop a mass escape. It left a strong sour taste in my mouth as it went back down. The old man I knew. I knew that face and I’d seen him on the TV about three months or more ago. His picture had been on an RTE version of a Crime Watch type programme (only with a much smaller budget). Had he been mugged or attacked or....something like that ? Anyway the Garda had wanted to question anybody who knew anything. Maybe I’d give them a ring when I got home.
My vision began to blur and all of a sudden I knew that unless I got of the bus fairly soon I’d end up passing out. When the headaches got exceptionally bad (which they hadn’t since eight years ago when I’d lost my job and the bank treathened to repossess the house) I was prone to complete black outs. I guessed that it was quite possible that it was going to happen again unless I got some fresh air.
I stood up and then I very, very nearly passed out. I wasn’t thinking straight, all I was thinking about was getting off the bus. I had to clutch the hand rail very tightly to stop myself from falling down. Then the boy looked across at me.
In that split second time seemed to stand still. I could suddenly make out every detail on the boy’s face, every aspect of him burned into my memory and I think that that moment was the first time when I knew who he was. But the moment passed and I guessed that I forget his name or perhaps made myself forget who he was to protect my own sanity. But I did know who he was and he knew that I knew. He looked up at me with these big sad eyes and although he never spoke I could tell that he was pleading with me. He was asking, almost begging me to help him. But I couldn’t. My head was screaming at me and I honestly thought that a brain tumour that had been living in my head dormant for the last few years had suddenly decided in poor taste and poor timing (as these things often are) that now was the time it was going to explode inside my skull. I turned away from the boy and staggered my way back down the bus towards the stairs. The American woman, Anne or Ann was looking directly at with an expression that mirrored the boys exactly. And I guess that then I knew who she was,. She was American all right but she had spent the last few years living (?) in Ireland, Wicklow to be more exact, near Johnny Foxes Pub to be very exact and I think at that moment I knew madness. The older man whom I recognised from Crime Watch (‘Can you help us with this missing persons case that has so far eluded the police ?’) was also looking at me. The whole bus was looking at me and I could feel my legs going. All I wanted to do was sit down and I very nearly did.
I have had very few defining moments in my life. I’ve gone from school to college and from college to a job, from single to married and from nothing to children with really the minimum of fuss and while the day I asked Pat to become my wife, the wedding day itself and the day my father died have all been very special to me