The Little Boy On The Bus

A guilt-ridden memory

Early morning… unexpected rail works… change from tram into buses… disgruntled passengers… a man shoves his son onto packed bus… no room for the two of them… door closes… father waves goodbye… smiling… little boy… suddenly alone… his face pressed against the door… his breath clouding the glass… he draws symbols and shapes with his finger… whispering to them… concentrated… fighting his fear… surrounded and squashed in by giants… one thought… getaway… he hums to his clouded figures… comforting himself.

She wants to assure him… he’ll be ok… and soon in his safe place… but she fears she’ll frighten him… she, too, is a giant.

Bus stops… unfamiliar stop… she sees his panic… she speaks…go…ask the bus driver… he’ll put you right… he gets out… enters upfront… irritated driver points to something… somewhere… outside… little boy disembarks…disorientated… turns… bus drives off… leaving him… at the bus stop… she sees his tearful face…

She couldn’t get this little boy out of her mind nor rid herself of the guilt she felt for not having gone with him to the driver and simply stayed with him. She was no better than his father whose only one thought had been “I must get to work.”

She checked the local newspapers over the next few days, relieved there was no report of a missing boy. “Imagine if there had been.” she thinks.

She remembered as the bus drove away seeing two young teenage girls standing at the bus stop. She’d prayed they’d noticed the tearful lost little boy… and so she handed over responsibility to them in the hope they would make up for her lack of kindness.