I had one
of the best bus experiences that I can imagine. I was on a bus, boarding in
Hackney and happy to find out that the Oyster Card Reader didn’t work and ready
to enjoy a bus ride that should – according to the tfl website - take approx.
43 minutes and 4 seconds. As we were driving (‘we’ means the bus driver and me)
through Canary Wharf and I was glancing at all these evil banks and some
workaholics smoking in front of the glass cages (on Saturday) that are supposed
to give the feeling that these money companies are transparent (ha), I was
thinking that this is a very peculiar and long bus route from Hackney to
Commercial Road.
After
passing the “financial heart of Britain”, the bus stopped near a McDonald’s next
to a dual carriageway. Engines off, lights out. I was briefly alarmed (it was
already dark outside and I was still the only passenger) of getting robbed,
raped or being in some way a victim of harassment whilst filmed on CCTV. The
bus driver came to me in the back. I was doing the cliché of sitting in the
last row. My instinct knows how to build an arc of suspense. The bus driver
said: “Hey, I need to go to the toilet. I’ll be off for three minutes” And ran
to McDonald’s. So I sat alone in a dark bus somewhere near the Thames. When the
bus driver came back, he murmured something that sounded like an apology for
the delay and then we raced off the dual carriageway and suddenly stopped at a
dodgy park station. “Final Destination”, the bus driver said to me. I thought
“yes, not one of the best horror movies I’ve seen, but I remember that in
sequel 2 or 3, people were killed on public transport” without realising that
it was the end of the route and we hadn't passed my bus stop. I told him that
(about the bus stop) and he responded: “That was a long time ago, when this bus
was on that route”. That the website told me that we were supposed to go there
just had rolling eyes as a reaction. “Where do you need to go?” – “Commercial
Road” – “Okay, come with me, we'll drive back and then get off at xyz”. When I got
off at Canary Wharf, because there would be a direct bus to my final destination for that evening
(and I also couldn’t remember the station the driver told me), he saw me
standing on the pavement and shouted through the closing doors of the bus:
“That’s not the stop!” – “I know, but I have a connection here”, I shouted
back. – “Ah, ok”. And this bus,
for which I hadn't paid a penny, went off.
I now think
it was a bus back from the future, where they have different bus routes and
people don’t have to pay because of a communist government that came to power
after the economy crashed and the Chinese took over Europe. But it will be a
moderate communistic work-attitude, because the driver was allowed to go to the
toilet at imperialistic McDonald’s.
No need to
be afraid of the future, Marty!
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