On being alone.

The top deck was empty, which made me feel strangely liberated. It’s like the feeling you get when you and the people you’re with are the only audience in a cinema – you can get up and do a little dance if you like and no one is there to be bothered by you. Normally when you’re sat on a bus there is bunch of stuff that you just can’t do. I’m not talking about stuff you’d want to do particularly, just dumb stuff like waving your arms around or making strange noises or skipping up the isle. But with no one about on top deck I was free to do these things. For perhaps one stop only I was free to do all sorts of crazy stuff that people just don’t do on public busses.

Of course, I just sat there like normal. But I enjoyed the brief liberty, knowing that if I’d wanted to run round a touch every no-smoking sign, I could have.

At the next stop someone else got on and came upstairs. They sat behind me and once again I was grounded by the ball and chain of social acceptability.