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25 minutes earlier

As I walk towards Earls Court, I realise how long it’s been since I mingled with my estranged commuter brethren. I invisibly pat their tired faces: the schoolboy who blatantly hasn’t done his homework, the bald business man who’s only twenty something, the girl with the bags of debt beneath her eyes. Some things don’t change. God I’m lucky.
 
 

Creature/MilkTwoSugars
 

Four hours and one minute earlier

“It’s about giving the audience what they want. They come to see action, so give them action. Drama is the filler.”
“The award winning part is filling the remaining space with shit so that when they finally get what they want, they’ll appreciate it, they’ll love it, they go fucking nuts!”
“Introduce, tempt, tease, then deliver on promises kept.”
“Another line?”
“He’s babbling enough shit as it is, I don’t think he needs-“
“Cheers!”

 
 
 

17 minutes later

I haven’t slept for at least twenty hours now. I scratch at my unshaven face. The sun is shining brightly, sparkling even, yet everybody’s looking at the floor. Maybe it’s to check on who’s wearing the trendiest shoes to work. Let’s face it, not much else to do on the bus, especially on the bendy bus, where you’re faced with the threat of looking somebody in the face. Shoes are safer. Unless they’re really shiny. But then you might be able to see the sunshine! I do like the sunshine though. I like watching people on the way to work, while I’m on my day off. I don’t want to rub it in, but anyone foolish enough to be glancing in my direction would be jolted by the shine of my grinning teeth. God I’m so lucky. Yes, I’m going back to bed, to hang on to this feeling as long as I can. I don’t want this to change.
 

Tomorrow

I can’t sleep and my sense of time is totally out of whack. Lying in my bed, I listen for the birds. The streams of daylight creeping through the window are creeping far more than they should, but then again, LSD always did have that habit of shedding new light on things, and how they could be viewed in a… different way. I throw open the curtains and wait for my corneas to sort themselves out. Finally I can make out people walking down the street: Six-armed angry schoolboys cussing and fighting, a red-faced suit puffs and pants as he tries to be just that little bit less late, and a pretty girl with a black coat and twiggy haircut just swans around aimlessly at the bus stop, waiting for that bloody bus. Some things just never change. I open the window, hop onto the ledge, and take a running leap. Everything stops. I float for an eternity, all in one millisecond, weightless in the sky, before time cruelly resumes and I plummet towards the concrete, five floors below, clawing at the air like a drowning cat, landing in front of the first of three number thirty-eight buses, just as they were about to reach the bus stop.

Thank you Sir, I will keep that change, and don’t forget your receipt.

Alan Francois