bus ride

My stomach turns in anticipation, I start heaving.

An attempt to partake of one last breath of fresh air results in a lungful of second-hand smoke.

In a few minutes, I will board the Circus Express that takes me to work every morning.

"Kylie, come 'ere! 'ERE I said you little... Oi, Beckham, look after your sister you useless mongrel! 'Ere I said, bus is coming. Come on you lot, NOW" barks a skinny teenage mother pushing a buggy in which a shrieking infant alternatively wails and hiccups, covered in snot.

"There, breakfast", she coos, handing them each a packet of prawn-cocktail crisps.

I whip out my compact and assorted tools to try and paint a smile on my face. Eeeeuw, this make-up must have gone off I think as an unusual smell assails my nostrils.

"Oh Rooney you little SOD! Look what you brother's done, puked himself AGAIN that's what", the midriff-baring, multiple hoop-earings-sporting mother of Kylie and Beckham broadcasts to the entire bus. The snotty babe in the buggy has evidently gone one hiccup too far.

Baby sick is not a smell that successfully combines with prawn cocktail crisps. My empty stomach does a swift and polite somersault before deciding to settle. There's nothing to throw up anyway.

Another stop, another handful of identikit teenage mums gets on, a gaggle of children in tow.

It is only 08:00am and yet they already look exhausted, with dark circles under their eyes and the jittery expression of those who are constantly harrassed.

They are the council estate army, dressed in similar low cut combat trousers, sporting a lower back tattoo that a regulation extra short parka struggles to cover. Pale, thin, clutching their mobile phone, they expertly park their respective pushchairs and plonk themselves on the nearest seats while their broods run wild.

"Chanel, Mackenzie, SETTLE!", shouts one of the heavily pregnant clone mothers. Her taut face is pulled back into a tight ponytail that makes frowning impossible. Her feline eyes grow dark with anger as she gives her daughters the evils.

Oblivious blonde pig-tailed heads carry on playing hide and seek between the seats while their genitor turns her gaze back to her mobile phone, texting away angrily.

A little girl who looks no older than 10 gets on in the town centre. She is alone and goes to sit in the back of the bus, carrying a pink kitten lunchbox. Soon, the hippie grandfather with long white hair tied into a ponytail and his two raucous grandsons go and sit nearby.

At the supermarket stop, mother and granny get on, sheperding five young children between them. Granny looks upbeat and sprightly while her daughter flashes the driver an NHS-sponsored smile that makes me wince in sympathy.

An iPoded teenage girl with a guitar on her back and a windproof hairdo of edifying proportions races for the bus. Too late.

Little by little, one by one, they all reach their destination while I stay aboard, waiting for the last stop.

The end of the line.