here

I don't really go on buses anymore, but today I got on the wrong bus.

No, wait -

I got on the wrong bus. I don't really go on buses anymore, but today I was on one, going the wrong way. At first I thought, shit. It's way too hot on this bus, and I was inappropriately dressed, wearing two jackets. But then, after we got out of the traffic jam, a breeze came in through the single open window and it wasn't so bad.

We went passed the Village, where I used to live, and a broken tree I remember photographing. It's grown older now, more jagged, and definitely thinner. We hit the inside of the roundabout in the hospital complex, and I saw a road called 'The Runnels'. We went over a river I didn't know existed, and past some horses in a misty field - I know the mist, but not the horses, or the trees. I think I saw a ladder leading over a wall, and I definitely saw (in an outlying village) a pond filled with mud.

I had a book full of psychoanalytical essays on my lap, and I remember thinking: leaping into the symbolism of your dark, strange thoughts is all very well and good until you get on the wrong fucking bus.

I am still on the bus, and now we are rolling down a long, steady hill. the scariest moment are when I think I recognise something, and then an unknown corner plunges me back into anonymous villages and thin streets. The onset of darkness seems to be accelerating, and just when I think I am further away from anywhere I have ever been, I see the B&B opposite our house.



(I stay on the bus.)



the national - driver, surprise me