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NB: Wrote this a while ago, I think it was meant to be part of something longer, but I'm damned if I can remember what. Answers on a post-card too...
...
It rained, frankly and freely. God didn’t care what we called him. God didn’t care what we thought.
Lilly bent to tie her laces on the courthouse steps. I waited. The wind trimmed trees to bare essentials, and the upswept storm cut the corners off the sky. We couldn’t see the stars. The half obscured moon bobbed up and down like a rotten apple.
Fucking hell, said Lilly.
We ran for the bus shelter gasping and blinking, skidding in soft-soled shoes against the concrete. Lilly rung water from the hem of her dress and I took off my tie. From under the shelter’s sloping roof we watched others come from the courthouse.
It don’t seem right we have to catch a bus, said Lilly, we ought to have a limousine.
I frowned. She stamped her foot, unbuttoning her coat. Well, she said, you know what I mean. I shake my head. We won, didn’t we? Yes. We won, after all Yes. Well, didn’t we? Her face was red. Her wool coat smelled of wet dog. Her hair was flat and damp. Aye, well…
I don’t care what you say, said Lilly, we only won is all, you could be a bit happy about it.
The number ninety-two bus came and we got on. We sat at the back. We sat in silence. Lilly took off her shoes and shook out three small stones. I breathed on the window and made the sign of the cross. People came and went. And then we were alone.
Oh, said Lilly, suddenly.
We were turning in to the Parade, pulling up past the rec. Lilly was clutching her stomach like she’d just eaten a bad fish supper. Oh, she kept saying, oh.
Oh what?
Now I get it, she said, now I get it. How horrible it is to get away with something, and go back to being anonymous and ordinary again.
Her eyes were wide with panic and she was wringing her hands.
It’s terrible, she said, it’s terrible, make it stop.
The bus?
No, not the bus, you eejit.
She stood up. Yes, she said, the bus. And she went towards the doors.
How horrible it is to go back to your life and pretend that nothing’s different, that nothing happened, that nothing matters. How horrible and how stupid. You’ll see.
She was pressing the stop button furiously. She hammered her fist against the shatter-proof glass and shouted at the driver. When the doors opened she jumped. She hit the ground running.
I thought about going after her for a while but in the end I figured she wasn’t worth it…
------
The human race, the only race I know where everybody loses.
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