mustard and sand.

November.
Redundancy.
–
It’s almost night, I’m on the Q3 bus, coming home from town, and I find myself resting my eyes on a fellow passenger. For no good reason.
(Appeal? Disgust? Too much of something? A disturbing memory? Fly open? Carrying a live hen? Humming to himself? Looking like my father. The way my father once looked. Not that I remember much of him.)
And then the person gets off the bus—through the back door—at the stop right before the railway bridge. I have twenty minutes more to get to my stop. I wish the person hadn’t alighted from the bus.
(My dad telephoned me from the desert last night. He said he had his doubts. And that it was ridiculously hot. He did not specify his doubts. And I was led to believe he passed away not much after the call.)
–
November is always a redundancy.