There’s one other person waiting for the 106 under the long line of shelters between the car yards and the Causeway. A hunched-up bus-stop woman.
I sit down beside her, tucking my weathered coat around my knees. ‘How’s your Sunday been?’
‘They should put on more buses! It’s taken me an hour to get here from Vic Park—the top end, mind! I hate the waste of time.’
I wonder what it is she wants to do with her time.
‘I don’t mind walking,’ I say. ‘It’s good for you.’
‘I can’t walk at the moment.’ She pulls a thickly bandaged ankle out from under the seat.
‘Ooh. What did you do?’
‘I was walking up a hill and, you know how your muscles cramp up…’
I don’t know. ‘Uh-huh,’ I say.
All she has on her feet are grubby white Havaianas. And her toes are covered in Band-Aids.
‘It’s the cold,’ she says. ‘I get cracked feet. Can’t wear boots at the moment—have to wear thongs. I hate the cold.’
The skin on the backs of her hands reminds me of a dead snake. I don’t ask her whether she smokes.
I consider her ill-circulated feet, imagine them encased in rainbow wool. ‘You could get some toe socks. From the markets. You can wear those with thongs.’
‘Oh, no.’
The winter sun pings off the glass-walled office block and the conservative incumbent’s election billboard.
‘At least it’s a nice day today,’ the woman says. ‘It’s been wet all week. I hate the rain.’
Whenever a gathering of dancing multi-toned clouds temporarily shields me from this city’s1 hegemony of blue, I’m thankful. Even more if they gift the trees some water.
‘Well,’ I say eventually, ‘at least no-one’s shooting at us. Not like in some countries. We don’t realise how privileged we are.’
‘They bring it on themselves, those countries. Born to kill each other.’
It’s not that simple, I think. But the bus arrives.
The woman doesn’t need my help. She heaves herself on and sits in the priority seats. I go to the back.
- Perth, Western Australia ↩︎
Jackson 