Nine pedestrians were killed last year by a bus in London. Truly it should have been so many more they way the city is laid out. Driving down the wrong way is permitted as a mere necessity to get from point A to point B should some bloke decide to park out front a shop or random construction be carried out. I marvel as the red, two story bus maneuvers the street and the driver, so focused and agile parts the waves of moving and not moving particulates. From my seat every person and every inanimate object seems far too close and from my window I have direct visual of the car we skirt by. It seems a miracle of trust that we squeeze through some areas by just hairs. I wonder what the driver uses as a marker to see from the far right hand where he is seated the margin he has on the left or in the back as he takes a turn.

When I entered the bus and flagged my pass across the reader, the bus driver flashed me a huge smile. He looked extremely excited to be a bus driver and even euphoric. I watched others enter the bus. Once a man had no fare and I saw a left arm reach out from the driver cab and swipe a car on his behalf. The sign beside his personal window advises, “Do not speak to the driver,” and leaves him isolated for hours, day after day. I myself had been so startled by the driver’s smile I forgot the reflex to smile back.

As my stops nears, a man on the left side of a coming intersection around a bend lurches out. He seems to be chased by another man waving his arms wildly in the air. The man being chased is holding a large bundle and just as the bus turns into that intersection it hits the man and all the pieces of what looks like a filing cabinet fly into the air. The driver comes to a sudden stop and the driver races out the cab yelling, “Oh no! Oh no!” The man who was in pursuit oddly stops and is lost in the group of passengers departing the bus.

All the passengers above are unclear why the sudden stop and a few getting ready to exit are tossed in the stairway descending. My suitcase rolled forward in the halt that forces me to grab the bar and let go of my suitcase. As the suitcase rolls it tags the driver fumbling out of his cab and he pushes it away with excellent peripheral vision. Instantly I wish I could use that argument to attest to the driver’s skills. I picture myself giving my account.

“Yes officer. I saw the whole thing. I was counting inches and of course was looking right at the man as he lurched into the street as the bus was more than properly and attentively turning. The driver? Oh yes, he is a very careful and descent man if I might add who even paid one man’s fare. No. No, I don’t know he just arrived from abroad and used to have a questionable pass. No. I haven’t ever spoken to him. Yes. I saw the sign. No I have never been to Nigeria. I do believe they are happy people there. Well, yes I am free should you have other questions,” and on and on the conversation would carry.

I get off the bus with others in a hesitant manner as if the bus now is our identity. We hit a man collectively. The man we hit lays on the street still and the driver is with him. The driver is crying and looking around very alarmed. He rests his hands on the back of his head and then in his pocket then folded across his chest. His disconcerted agitation creates a discernable quiver in the air. The man in the road is motionless and certainly is dead with his head mishapended and his leg and arm turned back in an odd angle. No one actually asks any of the passengers questions and so we quickly disperse. The hotel is only three blocks away so I walk the rest of the way rolling my suitcase along checking around me for any police. I do not think I fled a scene and wonder who writes of the people on the bus who’s bus hit a person in London.