0% Battery

"The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round..."

A 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 managed to seep into his brain before he'd managed to get his headphones on. Unfortunately, it had stuck, and a few minutes later, the tune was endlessly repeating in his brain, and he sat in abject misery on the bus.

Bob had taken to listening to music 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 today, the tunes on his phone had failed to take over from the small child's singing. Normally, he read his book too to completely block out his surroundings but that morning he'd forgotten it due to searching for his umbrella to combat an unexpected shower. Lots of damp people had got onto the bus, steaming up the windows, so unless everybody stopped breathing, all that was left to do was the age-old pastime of people watching instead.

Maybe it was some sort of evolutionary step he mused, looking at his fellow passengers. Maybe Darwinian evolution would produce a sub-species of human that could only survive in the confines of the diesel fumed, chewing gum infested mobile shed 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 began to mentally 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 qualities, who talked incessantly about the "state of the world today", "how teenagers assaulted people for pleasure", the fact that "the council aren't collecting bins often enough", or anything else they could have a damn good moan about, and often including various medical problems they might be experiencing too 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 massive headphones around his neck instead of clamped to his ears, thus enabling the whole bus to hear the faint "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 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 a smart (I'm in my first real job) suit, to cheap and nasty (I 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 even those people blessed with inner ear 'phones couldn't tune it out: the only exceptions (sometimes) being the invariably smelly and oblvious "alcho-guy" or anyone with a hearing aid, so they could turn it off and remain in blissful silence.

Bob 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 home. He resumed his musings.

Now where were we? Ah yes "mad old bat", "skate kid", "twenty-something moron"...

Bob 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, 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, it had turned into a day when the bus 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, then sighed again as the battery gave out on his phone.

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, burying his head in a book to further distance himself from everyone else around him. The slightly mad looking, balding, greying, into-the-distance-staring guy that no-one wants to sit next to, preferring to stand in the aisles rather than risk being rubbed up against, stabbed, or some similar imagined penance.

Bob put away his now powerless phone with its 0% battery warning 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 she 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..."

"...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..."

Bob hummed gently to himself. "The wheels on the bus go round and round, round and round, round and round... " reached into his bag for his gun, and 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 Bob 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 as the bus slowed down for the traffic lights ahead. Tucking his gun back into his bag he raised a hand, ready to strike the emergency exit button. 

Unfortunately, just before it stopped for the traffic lights, the driver skilfully managed to hit a large pothole, which jerked Bob's 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 surrounding 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.

Bob stepped off the bus and looked back into the steamed up, moron infested interior. As the bus pulled away and splashed him with filthy gutter water, he pondered that perhaps it was time to get back on his bike, for the sake of his sanity if nothing else.

He shouldered his rucksack and headed along the chewing gum infested pavements to his flat, the reassuring bulk of his gun pressing firmly into his lower back.