"Where are you going?" the old man asked.
"Back to college." the young man answered politely.
"What do you study there?"
"Computers."
"Why?" The old man leaned closer.
The boy had never been asked that before.
"Sorry?"
"Why do you study computers?"
"Well, everyone needs them now..." he faltered,
"...em, they're much faster."
The old man looked out the window and quietly chuckled to himself.
He glanced in front of him at the rows and rows of clean-cut men. Turkeys plucked and ready for a roasting! Ha, ha! He burst out laughing, couldn't help himself, didn't want to help himself. The turkeys turned, ruffled. What could anyone be laughing at?
The computer student turned on his walkman and was trying hard to ignore him.
A loud fart erupted from the seat and the old man roared again, shaking in pure delight. A woman opposite scowled and told her daughter not to stare. "Don't be rude Gemma!" She forced her to sit still.
"Ay, ay sir. I mean madam." The old man saluted. "Have to get the gender right. You fought so hard for that didn't ye? To get called 'madam' when you're saluted."
The woman pretended she couldn't hear.
Ha, ha, ha! The old man roared again and started rolling a cigarette. Slowly, carefully, taking his time. He lit it and sucked deeply, savouring the musty taste, seeing the stares of disbelief and anger out of the corners of his eyes.
"Excuse me!" One passenger turned around. A young woman with bleached hair and toxic makeup on her face. "Could you please put that out!"
The old man finished exhaling, slowly and shrugged.
Another woman got up angrily and went to talk to the bus driver. "You'd better put that out, if you don't want any trouble", another passenger advised.
"Who do you think you are?" Another passenger was standing up, shouting in his direction. "You selfish bastard, polluting our air."
The old man raised his hand and opened out two fingers to her.
"I never hear any one of you telling a motorist to stop driving his car because he's polluting your air. I don't hear you shutting down the factories or jamming up the ports. Don't see you closing down airports or nuclear reactors - You all pay your taxes and go to work and never do anything about the real pollution."
The bus lurched and stopped and the bus driver marched down, frowning.
"I was just thinking I'd like to get off." The old man stubbed his fag out on the floor and got up. "I was thinking I'd like some fresh air."
He grinned and pushed past the bus driver, down the steps and off into the grass at the side of the road. The bus left a thick cloud of noxious smoke hanging in the air. The old man crouched with his back to the disappearing bus, watching a yellow dandelion in the hedgerow edge. Gingerly he hopped through a gap in the fence and breathed in the grass smell on the other side. He lay down in the field in the midday sun, listening to the traffic passing by, watching white butterflies from half-closed eyes.
On the bus the passengers talked of the crazy old man and sweated sticky in the rising heat. Uncomfortable, miserable and bored, they sat and gossiped and fidgeted.
Old man was dreaming by then, soaring way above the road, flying through the clouds.
Slowly. Taking his time. No hurry, no hurry at all.
He travelled far in his dreams. Up through the sky. A white light stretched from the top of his head all the way up. Spiralling on and on, through the blue then blackness. White spirals of the milky way swirling in the dark. He flew and flew without moving. Time travelled without any machine.
Slowly. Taking the time of the universe. No hurry, no hurry at all.