The Moving Wood

A bus trudged along a narrow back road. Brambles and trees scraping the sides. Sudden bends in the road made the passengers unwillingly lean on one another. The bus passed over a cattle grate as the narrow road widened. Vast expanse of greenery dotted with faraway woodland exploded into view on the left hand side of the bus. Lucas woke Isabella. "Look, how beautiful." In a sleep daze Isabella snapped a shot on her phone. "Where are we?" she asked. Lucas didn't know. His phone had no signal. "We must be close." He said, wiping condensation off the window. "Look at all this grass. We must be close."

 Isabella checked her signal. "Lucas, will you ask the driver if there is any wifi?" Lucas looked at her with a condescending eye.

"The bus does not have seatbelts. I don't think it will have wifi."

"Can't you just ask?" Isabella asked in a bratty tone that Lucas had come to understand very quickly in their relationship. If he didn't go up and ask he would never hear the end of it, until they went to bed. Then Isabella would bring it up again, causing them to go against every great couples councillors advice of never going to bed angry.

He tittered side to side as if he were on a boat not a bus, until he reached the driver. A fat man, with a mop of white hair falling over his ears. "Sorry sir." Lucas asked. The driver ignored, or didn't hear him. A giggle broke out behind him, a group of teenagers. Lucas felt his ears start to redden. "Sorry sir. Is there wi-fi on the bus?" The driver made a series of mumbles and grunts, before saying, "Huh? Wi-Fi? What the fuck is that?" Lucas found this difficult to understand, more so because the driver didn't pronounce his T's. Instead of hearing what the fuck is that. Lucas heard, Wha de fuck is ha."

The driver waved Lucas away as if he was waving away an annoying fly. The group of teens laughed some more and one done an over exaggerated Dutch accent to mock Lucas.

"There is no Wifi."

"I think then we should get off at the next stop. Before we get more lost."

"We are not lost, I'm sure we are near." Lucas said.

"Lucas, let's get off. I am hungry, and need a smoke."

As the bus laboured to a stop, the teens were up first and off. Lucas was happy with this as he didn't want them to make fun of him in front of Isabella. The driver, was up then, putting a cigarette into his mouth and lighting it.

"I thought we couldn't smoke on buses?" Isabella said, while already having an unlit cigarette between her fingers. Her urge to smoke was making her itch and short tempered. The driver made his way down the aisle to them. Lucas thought he was going to help them with their bags.

"Der's a pub jus cross da road der. Food and mit have that wefy yoke yer ask about." He hoisted his thumb behind his head as to point in the direction he meant, and looked at Isabella, "Don be shmokin on de bus now." Then he left. He didn't offer to help with their bags.

Off the bus Isabella lit her cigarette and took in a long, catching breath, the kind you take when you've been underwater too long. "Where did he say the pub was?"

Lucas approached the bus driver. "Sorry, where is the pub?"

Taking a heavy, final pull of his cigarette, then replacing it with a fresh one, the driver told them to follow him. They crossed the road from the bus stop, took a right, past a worn down fast food joint, past a book makers and past a pharmacy that looked as if it hadn't been open to the public in years. Until they finally came across a red building with a black tiled roof which arched upwards. The Rising sun was painted in gold just over an ebony coloured door. The driver stopped at the door, pulled another cigarette and held it open for his two former passengers, he tossed the fag to the ground as he entered, putting the other one behind his ear, waving a hand to the barman.