He lost something. Don't know what. Exactly. Do you?
The instant his hand touched his back pocket he knew that it had been gone all along. Gone like it had never existed. Vanished without a trace. For an uncomprehending instant he stared out with dazzling clarity through the grime-spattered windscreen before him, out at a clear blue sky. As the enormity of his loss sank torpor-tipped fangs into a palpitating heart a sudden weariness settled unto his shoulders like the weight of a wet wool blanket. Time, that supposedly impartial looker-on to the banalities of this life, ground to a halt as he – already considering all possibilities great and small – withdrew into the bewildering hotchpotch of flashes and snatches that constituted his memory. His mind, as he waded through its foggy catacombs, spared him not an instant of this rapidly unfolding nightmare. Yes that is what this is – a nightmare. My own exclusive horror story in 3D and colour. Let me remember - I brought it out at the motor-park to pay the fruit-vendor. I returned it. Did I? Yes I did - I remember reaching behind as she peeled the oranges for me. Then I walked over to the booking booth and made the inquiries and put down my name and brought it out again for my identity card. Then I walked to the bus stop and - stop. Missing out something, something before that. The beggar-girl! No – gave her the loose change in my pockets. Used up all my loose change so no loose change – much good do-gooding has done me ha! Think goddamnit – think! I walked over to the bus stop. Nothing happened along the way. I - it doesn’t matter. Yes it does, everything matters. I joined the crowd around the performing chimp and watched for a few minutes: fifteen I think. It was still there when I left. I think. All my money! Nothing happened until the first bus came – couldn’t get on because of the rush. In the rush. No. But didn’t realize I was missing a button until the second bus came and went. Boarded the third one – this one. Wait wait wait... Wait! That fellow – the hard-faced one staring, staring as if in recognition, staring interested... That look in his eyes with hindsight was not admiring no. He was assessing me he was, checking out my value he was, my worth to his thieving life... All my money. It must have been. Him. All my money plus troubles and still more... That face – it was him. The bloody ba****d. It was him. All my money, my identity cards, my housekeys, my baby picture, irreplaceable, my address book, my...what else? My condoms. The bloody...
‘Son of a b***h!’
The bus suddenly fell deathly silent, even the rackety engine. In the cracked side-mirror he could see the disapproving glances the other passengers threw at the back of an unrepentant head, but he ignored them all, indulging red-hot thoughts of revenge, regret, missed karate lessons...
With a sudden clamour of exultant horn-blares the hold-up cleared, and as the ancient Volkswagen motor sputtered back into a semblance of life, the bus-conductor hunched up from his awkward perch in the pane-less window of the bus’ unlatched door. After savagely clearing his throat and then with an elastic twist of his neck sending the weed-scented gob flying through the window behind him, he gruffly called out for the fares. Fares please, he intoned pugnaciously. Fares... please don’t make me beat it out of you – I might enjoy myself too much. He decided to go through his pockets once more to be completely and absolutely certain that it was completely and absolutely gone. You never know, stranger things have happened. Maybe this is all a dream, a dream that I’ll laugh at once I open my eyes, open my eyes... He opened his eyes but did not laugh. The only dream here is the dream that this is a dream.
He reached for his back pocket yet again: he thrust in his forefinger, then his middle finger, and finally his whole hand. It wasn’t nestling in any corner. Offering up an ardent prayer to any softhearted godhead willing to intervene, he quickly went through his other pockets – the two on his trousers and the one over his heart. Nothing there. He patted himself down, ignoring the curious glances cast his way by the driver as he went over his chest, his crotch, his legs, justifying his actions on the implausible grounds that it might have slipped into his clothes through a tear in his pocket. Finally, with nowhere left to look but in the ugly face of implacable reality, he sank back into his seat in defeat. Yes, it is gone. I hope you rot in hell for this, hard-face. I hope you choke to a slow and painful death on your tongue as you chomp on whatever my money has paid for. I hope my condoms burst on you with the wrong whore. I hope - oh s**t – I pray you spend the rest of your miserable life regretting that you ever shone eyes at me.
‘Your fare. Please.’
As he met the bus-conductor’s thunderous gaze over the headrest of the seat he wondered from where to begin his story. But then, that is another story.
FINIS.
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