Mate, don't sit there

Mate

don’t sit there, honestly

I know the bus is quite busy and I’m kinda looking sort of well, not friendly, but probably Dad-ish, here not too near the back or front, with my headphones on listening to Inside the Comedian, and looking out the window

so I understand that I’m a safe bet, dressed in my work clothes and looking sort of smart casual.

But mate

you’ve not thought this through

I’m saying this silently to myself cause I know I wouldn’t’ve been told neither, and also a bit cause, yeah, I would prefer to have my bag next to me cause I don’t like mornings or strangers on the bus next to me

but that’s not it. Not really. I can cope with all that, even if I am one of only a few on this bus wearing a mask

Mate

have you seen the other free seat

I know there’s quite a few other free seats, and they’re all much of a muchness, as buses are and seats and open windows and mouth-breathing fart-arsed other college students like you

but you need to work this out in your own head before you sit in the seat next to me.

Look

have you ever seen such a beautiful neck

I can’t fucking tell you this or acknowledge it either cause obviously it’s inappropriate and I am so much older than you and her and pretty much most of this bus clanking its way across Shropshire

but there is down and soft skin and elegance and the most gorgeous delicately auburn hair and

Look

she is your age and she is alone and beautiful

I don’t want you to be harassing her or anyone ever so don’t get me wrong but you know, mate, I can tell you that you have picked the wrong seat here, the wrong seat entirely

she has a cosy woolly jumper on and in the rain she would look even more beautifully bedraggled

so Mate

honestly it is for you to decide what to do but please

be a good man. Be what you want to be. Sit there, next to her, the girl with the beautiful neck, the young woman who – maybe – you might get chatting with and actually like each other and make friends

or more, or none of those things. And all those are OK. But you’ll never, ever find out if you sit next to me instead, and

Mate

don’t be me, mate. Don’t be me. Don’t be me.

There’s fewer stops than you realise before we all pull in to the bus station and we all have to get off and maybe the girl will never get on the same bus again or maybe she will and

someone else will sit next to her and maybe even then you won’t see it but believe me

Mate

a snap of the fingers click clack 30 years will have bungled by and you will be

sitting on a different bus on your own in your own seat behind a girl with a beautiful neck and you will be dismayed when some gozzy-nosed college boy doesn’t even notice that he is making a decision

that he will only see as a decision at all when he is three decades too old and the only wisdom you can impart to him silently is that with understanding comes only sadness.