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I am stood in a bus queue but I am not waiting for a bus. I decided to do it because my other options are just as nullifying and because I heard that we spend an average of twenty two days of our life waiting in queues. As I never go shopping and very rarely venture out into public I thought I better get my twenty two days out of the way whilst I am young and have the ability to stand upright for long periods. I don’t want to be called a slacker at the Pearly Gates by those who have fulfilled their quota. And don’t tell me that won’t happen because it will. Heaven will be exactly like Earth except a little softer and the weather will be more consistent.


The man in front of me has scabs around his top lip. He is either excessively hungry or suffering from cold sores. He may have simply been pilling it the night before, hoping to rekindle the youth his hairline suggests he’s lost. Either way it doesn’t matter. He seems contented by this, a coping mechanism perhaps for those fleeting moments of silence. Next to him are a couple kissing each other a little too often than is perhaps socially acceptable. If they continue for much longer they too may get scabs around their lips. Perhaps it’s contagious?

 
 
 

 

Next to me is a man in a tan overcoat. It is that milky brown suede colour. He looks very warm and I imagine at this moment in time he is glad to have purchased such a useful item. He constantly fiddles with something in his pocket. I suspect there is nothing there. It is the act of fiddling he enjoys. It helps avoid stray glances and makes him feel more comfortable with the wait. A similar process is being deployed by others around me except with mobile phones, newspapers or by staring at the floor.


For me distraction comes in the form of random falling snowflakes. Every now and then one will fall onto my nose or drip down my sock and into my shoe; making me tingle inside. A stray dog has the same idea. He keeps jumping up at the flakes and snapping his jaws shut and then looking slightly bemused when he finds his mouth empty and robbed of reward. I want to explain to the dog that his eyes deceive him. That he will never catch anything. But there is no point. I have been telling this to people for years and they don’t listen so why on earth should a dog?

 

 
 

The snow falls some more until the sky becomes pixilated and it momentarily feels as if I am walking inside of a Seurat. A series of dots forming a whole picture but not close enough to join up. The Inuit love snow. They have an extensive vocabulary to describe the various types and effects of it - Pictuluk, piqtulukuq, qanik, quaniktuq, tugiu, sikuliaq, illauyiniq to name but a few. In Britain we have an extensive vocabulary for genitals- is this all our culture boils down to?

Somebody has started to complain about the weather and it is no different from fiddling with imaginary things in your pocket or sending text messages to a friend. It’s just something people do when they are stuck in awkward situations. A coping mechanism for those lonely moments, the moments we spend our whole life trying to fill.

Now that the silence has been broken and the British weather has become a unifying force that everybody is keen to discuss, the snow does not seem so special. Before when it drifted around in the sky and landed on my skin it felt like something was blowing wet kisses at me. Now it has become an inconvenience, a personal insult, something which others could do without.

 

If there is a God, a God that controls the elements and decides daily upon what weather to douse the world with, I wonder if s/he ever gets tempted to send sleet and ice down on this moaning lot. It must be incredibly frustrating to be constantly berated by an audience unable to comprehend the magnitude of such beauty, such difference - these taken for granted gifts sent to arouse the senses. But I guess not. If there is a God s/he is probably up there as we talk, in the miracle queue with Atman and Buddha, a few rows in front of Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, quacks and quarks patiently awaiting their turn for a prophesy or miraculous act; with hand in pocket, fiddling away at nothing, merely passing away time too.

James Walker