“The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round.”

The small child and her mother had wandered past him singing the old rhyme as he’d stood at the bus stop, and the simple tune had now managed to seep into his brain before he’d managed to get his headphones on. Unfortunately it had stuck in his head, and a few minutes later, the tune endlessly repeating in monotonous reel through his brain, he sat in abject misery with the abnormal bunch of pillocks that he shared an unhappy twenty minute portion of every morning with.

He’d taken to wearing headphones on the bus at all times, in order to avoid having to talk to any of the sociopathic nonentities that seemed to inhabit public transport, but the tunes on his MP3 player had as yet failed to take over from the small child’s singing. Normally, he read his book while listening to music in order to completely block out his surroundings. Sadly, that morning, due to searching for his umbrella to combat an unexpected shower before he left the house, he had forgotten it. The option of staring out of the window was sadly denied due to all the windows steaming up after lots of damp people had got onto the bus which, unless everybody stopped breathing, left him the age old pastime of people watching instead.

Maybe it was some sort of evolutionary step he mused, looking over the heads of the passengers on the bus. Perhaps Darwinian evolution meant that a sub-species of human would evolve that could only survive in the confines of the diesel fumed, chewing gum infested mobile shed that the local bus company laughingly called public transport: a new species of human able to exist only for short periods of time outside their natural environment of “bus” to forage for fast food and top-ups for their mobile phones.

On closer inspection, there even appeared to be sub-categories of numpty-man or Homo Moronicus as he’d come to think of the new sub-species.

For something to do, he mentally began to compile a list of the various Moronicon stereotypes. His gaze alighted on a lady near the front of the bus. A prime example of the “mad old bat”: generally female, usually smelling faintly of urine, cats or lavender and indeed sometimes all three! Not always old, but usually an indiscriminate fifty-ish woman with a large handbag of tardis-like proportions, who talked incessantly about the “state of the world today”, “how teenagers assaulted people for pleasure”, “the fact that the council weren’t collecting the bins often enough”, anything in fact that they could have a damn good moan about, often including various medical problems that they might be experiencing, in excruciatingly nauseating detail.

Looking around for his next stereotype, his eyes came to rest on a teenage boy who was standing by the door, waiting to get off at the next stop. Tall, gangly, spotty, pants on view from the rear of his trousers that seemed to have a crotch somewhere down by his knees; “skate kid” was usually harmless unless his trousers fell down, but insisted on wearing massively large headphones around his neck instead of clamped to his head, thus enabling the whole bus to faintly hear the “guck tsh, guck tsh, guck tsh” of the rhythm.  

Thankfully his own noise cancelling headphones were still working, throwing out a soothing counterpoint to the interminable drivel being spouted by a “twenty-something moron” behind him. Unlike “skate kid” who could also sometimes be female and quite frankly not a problem, “twenty-something moron” was always male, always an ignorant arse and nearly always seemed to be sitting just behind him. Dressed in a variety of clothes from smart (I’m in my first real job) suit, to (I’m unemployed and don’t give a shit) sports gear, the only real prerequisite was to talk overly loudly on your phone, play with said phone incessantly, or put some heavy beats on loudspeaker so that even those people blessed with inner ear ‘phones couldn’t tune it out: the only exception (sometimes) being the invariably smelly “alcho-guy” or anyone with a hearing aid, so that they could turn it off and remain in blissful, ambivalent, and happy silence.

Oh dear, that really was a catch all. “Alcho-guy”. The bloke who always reeled onto the bus at the last possible moment, swearing loudly as he narrowly missed getting squished in the closing doors: usually with a couple of carrier bags, alcoholic red nose illuminating the way forwards in staggering incoherence, and nearly always an older man or someone unfortunate enough to be down and out, they were usually blissfully unaware of their surroundings. Any age, usually male, sometimes even quite smartly dressed, but stinking of booze, and often with body odour so extreme that your eyes watered in sympathy with your nasal passages. He did have one wonderful memory of an “alcho guy” who’d got on once with the dog that had been trained to “woof” as his drunken master sang ‘How much is that doggy in the window’, but that was overshadowed by every other one since.

Darren wiped half-heartedly at the window next to him, smearing a greasy film of something across the glass. Hmm, how we gettin’ on: only half-way to work. He resumed his musings.

Now where were we? Ah yes “mad old bat”, “skate kid”, “twenty-something moron”, “Alcho-guy”.

He tried a more positive tack on his thoughts. There were some good people on the bus sometimes too of course, the sweeping generalisation he seemed to be mentally indulging in included:

Stressed out mum – absolutely forgivable, particularly when the kid is crying.

Giggling teens – hell, he thought even I was a teen once, they’re enjoying themselves and are essentially harmless (unless of course you’re a “mad old bat” and then all teenagers carry guns, inject heroine and molest old ladies).

Eccentric but lovely old biddy – usually found next to stressed out mum, making faces at the kids to try and stop them crying.

Old well dressed man with stick – always gets up to offer his seat to any member of the fairer sex, despite being virtually crippled himself with arthritis.

Today unfortunately was a completely Nutter day; now that the “skate kid” had got off the bus, it had turned into a day when the bus, although sparsely populated with only ten or so people, was replete with a contingent of “mad old bats” and “twenty-something morons” his least favourite of all his negatively tagged stereotypes. He sat one seat ahead of the rear seat of the bus on his own and sighed gently, then sighed again as the batteries gave out on his MP3 player.

There was one last categorisation though he thought to himself with a wry smile, the “middle aged grumpy bastard” subspecies. The cynic who puts on his headphones to exclude the world: in preference, burying his head in a book to further distance himself from everyone else around him. The slightly mad looking, balding, greying, into-distance-staring guy that no-one wants to sit next to, preferring to stand in the aisles rather than risk being Holy Joed, stabbed or some similar imagined penance.

Darren put away his now powerless MP3 player and watched another “twenty-something moron” midway down the bus push a button to start some trance music battering its way into the general winging hubbub. The Nutter bus really was utterly full of his least favourite people, not a teen, biddy or mum in sight to redeem the full horror of today’s journey. Snippets of conversation drifted into his now unprotected ears -

“…yeah man, yeah. She was hot right, I slipped a tab in her drink and we woz at it all night… didn’t remember a thing…”

“…an’ then our Vera said we oughta write to the Council and complain, it’s not right…”

“…ooh, these piles really are giving me grief dear…”

“…nah, gotta sign on, then I can go back to bed and pretend I’ve got a bad back again, even got a neck brace now to make it look right…. yeah I know, suckers…”

“…bloody teenagers, all they do is create chaos, no respect…”

“…no Andrew, get the money first then close ‘em down. I don’t care about how long they’ve been in the company, get rid of ‘em…”

Darren hummed gently to himself.

“The wheels on the bus go round and round,

round and round, round and round”

…and then reaching into his bag for his gun, he made up a second verse on the spot.

“The nutters on the bus go bang, bang, bang;

bang, bang, bang; bang, bang, bang.

The nutters on the bus go bang, bang, bang,

all day long.”

Blood and gore spattered the windows of the bus in percussive counterpoint to the second verse. Once Darren had turned and dispatched the “twenty something moron” behind him, he quickly made his way to the front of the bus, shooting swiftly and accurately with the silenced pistol. Very few noticed his presence as he moved up behind them, absorbed in their own private mumblings, music or conversations. The silencer made little noise as the bus trundled on, and halfway down the aisle he reloaded from a spare clip, the driver paying no attention to his passengers as normal.

As he reached the front of the bus with its now dead and gory cargo, he waited patiently for the traffic to stop so he could safely exit after putting a bullet into the man behind the wheel. Unfortunately, just before it stopped for the traffic lights, the driver skilfully managed to hit a large pothole, which jerked his hand from under his chin and woke him up.

He looked out of the window to work out where he was, and thumbed the “stop” button: he’d actually managed to doze off briefly and the wonderful bullet ridden removal of the dregs of humanity that surrounded him on the Nutter bus had been merely a dream. He sighed in disappointment and waited for the doors to open, having woken up just before his stop.

Stepping off the bus and looking back into the steamed up, moron infested interior, he pondered on the thought that perhaps it was time to get back on his bike, for the sake of his sanity if nothing else.

He opened his umbrella in defence against the continuing shower, shouldered his rucksack and headed along the chewing gum infested pavements to work, the reassuring bulk of the gun pressing firmly into his lower back.

~~~ The End ~~~

The Wheels on the Bus

by

Gavin Wilson

Wattpad EDITION

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PUBLISHED BY:

Gavin Wilson on Wattpad

The Wheels on the Bus, Copyright © 2010 Gavin Wilson.

All rights reserved.

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