Buses Replacing Trains [Fiction]

A slow smile came to his lips.

Suzi Quatro, on the bus - Devil Gate Drive. A slow smile came to his lips. An oldie but a goodie. All around him he saw the simultaneous signs of decay and development. Long grass growing through high chain link fences. Seventies houses up for sale. Road choked with crawling traffic. Concrete tetris blocks, like wannabe inner city apartments.

The bus droned on through narrow streets, roundabouts and station carparks. A smattering of voices echoed off the glass. A young man - was he seventeen? - picked at his nose ring and sniffed. Despite the outside temperature sitting around twenty-five degrees, he wore a grey beanie. What sort of a life has he made for himself? Where was he going? He got off at the next station but clearly that couldn't have been his true destination. A thin backpack hung from his shoulders. Not much baggage there.

The man adjusted his face mask and glanced around the vehicle. Yep. Not many others wore them. Mainly those of Asian appearance and older passengers, like him.

Pandemic. Putin. Poverty.

Education. Ejaculation. Edification.

Fact check. Fast food. Fat check. Football.

LOL. FOMO. I ❤️ U.

Where would we be without our phones? he thought. A blessing and a curse. A joyride to death unless we take control. He sees a petrol station slide by with the price at $2.30 a litre. So much is out of his control so he lets the image fade, disappear behind him.

He checks his phone, feeling its weight, and is reminded of the Beanie Boy. Not much baggage, but then, baggage doesn't have to have much weight. Like the weightless Apps in his phone. A feeling of uncertainty creeps through him...

The bus arrives at the Dandenong Station, edging into the parking bay. Most of the workers who guide passengers to their new destination are from countries in southern Asia, a sign of the multicultural times some people are so proud of. There's also a white-skinned worker. The token white?

A heavy-set African woman, who has been sitting silently at the pointy end of the bus, is turned in her seat, about to get off. But she can't move as the rest of the oblivious passengers push past her. At last, she is the last, and can straighten awkwardly and plod heavily down the step to the concrete.

'Thanks,' she says clearly, her fantastically coloured dress swaying in rhythm with her ample hips.

Ten minutes later, seated in carriage 9715, he lets the cool air swallow him, content to wait until his destination. Richmond Station. 

Time runs in a line as he sits, quiet for a long time. He notices everything and nothing. The air is still cool in his carriage. The familiar sights of the outer CBD move past his window. It seems that most of them haven't changed in sixty years. A light tower rises. He sees images of other cities decimated by war, objectified by the flights of drones, and knows that everything has changed, for them and for us.

Now arriving at Richmond.