Woman On The Bus

On the bus, the woman in front of me smells like cigarettes and damp. Her head thrashes randomly against the window and she vents unintelligible shrieks. She hits herself in the face, and we all stare at invisible spots on the floor. The act of seeing without being seen to be seeing. No one feels sorry for her, we just feel better about ourselves.

She's a drug casualty, by the look of her teeth and her wrecked arms, likely heroin. Maybe one day she tried to go straight, but the junk had already fried her brain to this point, so even if she doesn’t use it anymore it still haunts her, always a part of her life.

She wears rings on her fingers and I wonder if she bought them herself, conscious she'd pound them into her own head on a daily basis, or if they were a present from someone, a friend, a lover, a partner in junk.

She shows no shame in her sickness, won’t scowl or chastise the child looking wide-eyed in wonder, doesn't flinch when the school kids at the back snicker and call her a retard.

With a flurry of obscenity directed at nothing in particular she exits the bus at her stop, the smell of cigarettes and damp lingering.