Real Life Promts #1
Yeah, so I've either been busy or been in a grump, so not as much with the general postings. Anyway, I wanted to kick that into touch, but discover I don't have much to say that won't go back into grumpiness or being busy!
Instead, here is a little something I saw some months ago, that got me in a real writing mood, despite me producing nothing connected to this actual incident.
I'll just add that, in my head at least, I see bus drivers as quite sexual people - they have a lot of room to think between stops, get hot and sweaty, and see all sorts of people who might appeal in 'that' way. They also show a fair amount of forearm (which appeals to me) and locally speaking, are, in the main, friendly and not a little flirtatious.
(Inspired by rivers_bend's recent post about not being so much with the dark at the moment. Much love.)
That moment the bus turns into the roundabout (the moment I usually prepare to stand as it's the only way to beat the rush of bodies who, and I'm being kind here, have no need to be in a rush anyway) I get a wide-angled, windscreen view of the pavement. I remain sitting and stare.
There's a young man in a black suit, white shirt buttoned up to his neck, holding his tie in his hand. He's a good-sized young man (and I mean that he's not skinny and he's not fat; his size is good) with darker than pale skin, and black hair and a smile that is exactly between charming and friendly, shy and forthcoming, open and eager.
He's stopped at a place that used to be a car park before they knocked down the old bus station, years before getting planning permission for the new. Now it's full of shipping containers doubling as the bus operaters' offices, but the art-deco fence still separates the pavement from the compound, still painted in the faded turquoise so favoured by 1950s councils. This is where a crowd of bus drivers now hang out between shifts, or buses, of cigarettes.
I can't hear what's being said, but the young man is holding out his tie and shrugging, still with that expressive smile, and the bus drivers are amused in a way that I have no way of telling is peculiar to blue-collared men, or Derbyshire men, or Derbyshire blue-collared men, but it's subtle, and knowing, but friendly none the less (and I can hear what their laughter sounds like in my head though I can't describe it well) and I see they like the young man even though what he is asking could potentially be embarrassing.
Because I realise, in those few seconds, he is explaining that he needs to wear the tie, but either doesn't know how to, or can't knot it himself, and can they help him at all? These tall and short men with their beer bellies and wiry frames, and balding and greying heads, and work bags slung over their shoulders, and cigarettes in their fingers, and the coin machines under their muscled arms, and most importantly, their burgundy ties around their necks.
This is father to son stuff, best friends or lovers, and it's playing out here, on the kerbside, in the morning sun, an easy exchange between strangers.
And the thing that still gets me, (though it's a fair while ago now) is the relaxed way the drivers react. They only, en masse, pause for a moment; they don't look to one another to mock or turn him down flat or accuse him of idiocy. One of their sturdier number simply steps up to the young man, clamps a cigarette between his front teeth to free up his hands, and takes on the challenge.
The bus completes its turn and they are all gone from my view.
I smile all the way into work, right up five flights of stairs, into the staff room and back onto the shop floor.
Because beyond the customers, beyond the books, beyond the walls and windows, somewhere a young man is most likely having an interview, or attending an important meeting, and I know how exactly how he ended up looking so smart.
And besides, I also happen to know that those bus drivers wear elasticated ties.
Instead, here is a little something I saw some months ago, that got me in a real writing mood, despite me producing nothing connected to this actual incident.
I'll just add that, in my head at least, I see bus drivers as quite sexual people - they have a lot of room to think between stops, get hot and sweaty, and see all sorts of people who might appeal in 'that' way. They also show a fair amount of forearm (which appeals to me) and locally speaking, are, in the main, friendly and not a little flirtatious.
(Inspired by rivers_bend's recent post about not being so much with the dark at the moment. Much love.)
That moment the bus turns into the roundabout (the moment I usually prepare to stand as it's the only way to beat the rush of bodies who, and I'm being kind here, have no need to be in a rush anyway) I get a wide-angled, windscreen view of the pavement. I remain sitting and stare.
There's a young man in a black suit, white shirt buttoned up to his neck, holding his tie in his hand. He's a good-sized young man (and I mean that he's not skinny and he's not fat; his size is good) with darker than pale skin, and black hair and a smile that is exactly between charming and friendly, shy and forthcoming, open and eager.
He's stopped at a place that used to be a car park before they knocked down the old bus station, years before getting planning permission for the new. Now it's full of shipping containers doubling as the bus operaters' offices, but the art-deco fence still separates the pavement from the compound, still painted in the faded turquoise so favoured by 1950s councils. This is where a crowd of bus drivers now hang out between shifts, or buses, of cigarettes.
I can't hear what's being said, but the young man is holding out his tie and shrugging, still with that expressive smile, and the bus drivers are amused in a way that I have no way of telling is peculiar to blue-collared men, or Derbyshire men, or Derbyshire blue-collared men, but it's subtle, and knowing, but friendly none the less (and I can hear what their laughter sounds like in my head though I can't describe it well) and I see they like the young man even though what he is asking could potentially be embarrassing.
Because I realise, in those few seconds, he is explaining that he needs to wear the tie, but either doesn't know how to, or can't knot it himself, and can they help him at all? These tall and short men with their beer bellies and wiry frames, and balding and greying heads, and work bags slung over their shoulders, and cigarettes in their fingers, and the coin machines under their muscled arms, and most importantly, their burgundy ties around their necks.
This is father to son stuff, best friends or lovers, and it's playing out here, on the kerbside, in the morning sun, an easy exchange between strangers.
And the thing that still gets me, (though it's a fair while ago now) is the relaxed way the drivers react. They only, en masse, pause for a moment; they don't look to one another to mock or turn him down flat or accuse him of idiocy. One of their sturdier number simply steps up to the young man, clamps a cigarette between his front teeth to free up his hands, and takes on the challenge.
The bus completes its turn and they are all gone from my view.
I smile all the way into work, right up five flights of stairs, into the staff room and back onto the shop floor.
Because beyond the customers, beyond the books, beyond the walls and windows, somewhere a young man is most likely having an interview, or attending an important meeting, and I know how exactly how he ended up looking so smart.
And besides, I also happen to know that those bus drivers wear elasticated ties.