How to get back

An elderly lady is completely lost, in all senses of the word.

 

 

HOW TO GET BACK

 

The inside of Minnie’s house was as dark as the inside of her mind. The confusion that reigned there was something that only she knew about. On the morning of the events that were to change her life she got off a bus in what she thought was the port area of the town where she lived. Nothing was as she expected it to be. A lot of the buildings were in a state of disrepair and there were few people in the streets. Nobody was at all interested in her. Minnie knew that she was lost and wasn’t quite sure how to get back home. She went into a very rundown bar and asked the barman where she could catch a bus back to the centre of town. The barman indicated a bus stop on the other side of the main road. Minnie thanked him and made her way across the road to the bus stop. There were other people waiting for a bus, mainly women and children. When the bus arrived they all climbed aboard and paid the driver. The majority of the seats were already occupied but there were enough empty seats for the recently boarded passengers.

The rocking motion of the bus sent Minnie to sleep. When she awoke, the sun was on the right-hand side of the bus which meant it was after midday. Through the windows  knee-high wheat could be seen growing in fields. Water was also present along the sides of the road in deep ditches. Minnie thought it had been raining or the fields had been watered by the farmer. There were no people to be seen working in the fields. It suddenly occurred to Minnie to ask a passenger where the bus was going. On being told, she went up to the driver and said, “Can you stop the bus, please. I have to get off. I seem to have got on the wrong bus.”

The driver stared at her with a grumpy look on his face and replied, “You’re supposed to look at the number of the bus when you get on, not after it’s travelling.” He stopped at a point where Minnie could get off without being run over, and drove off.

 Minnie began walking along the road in the opposite direction to that which the bus had been travelling. The air was warm and soft on her face with an almost imperceptible breeze. It wasn’t the weather for walking, nor the time of day. Minnie felt hungry. She saw that she wasn’t wearing a watch and had no idea of the time. After walking for some time she came up to a small row of bars and restaurants. There was faint music coming from inside one of them. The smell of cooking made her even more determined to have a meal. She went from blinding sunlight into a cool, dark interior. There were still people being served at the tables and the bar. A barman was preparing coffee for those who had already eaten. A waiter went up to Minnie, “Good afternoon, Madam. Do you wish to eat a full meal or have something lighter?”

Minnie, who was afraid of fainting due to the hunger she felt, replied, “I’ll have the menu of the day, please.”

“Then it’s a table for one. Please come this way.” The waiter led Minnie over to a small table on the right-hand side of the restaurant. Above the table there were photographs of the restaurant in older times. Minnie sat down. She then opened her bag and took out her purse and saw that she wasn’t short of money. Relieved, she relaxed in her chair and closed her eyes. The smell of the food that the waiter placed in front of her reminded her to open her eyes and she began eating. Minnie left nothing on the plates and even soaked up the sauce with bread. When she had filled herself up with food, she had coffee.

The sun was still shining when she exited the restaurant. Outside on the gravelled parking lot there were a couple of dogs stretched out fast asleep. Not far ahead of the restaurant there was a bus stop. This time Minnie put on her glasses and concentrated on the timetable. An elderly man went up to her and said,  “If you’re wanting a bus you haven’t long to wait. One passes on the quarters of the hour. Four every hour.”

Minnie smiled and said, “Thank you very much.”

There was a seat by the bus stop and Minnie sat down on it. Now she was no longer hungry, she felt a lot better.  The bus stopped at the bus stop and Minnie climbed aboard. The other passengers made no sign of curiosity as she sat down in the empty seat behind the driver. The countrified scenery had changed to a shopping centre. The whole was one vast cement enterprise. The shops and leisure centre had been added to make it somewhat human. But, there was no one to be seen. Everyone who went to the shopping centre became part of the interior once inside it. From outside it wasn’t possible to see what was happening inside. After the centre came the opposite side of the port where Minnie had caught the earlier bus. They went over a bridge and then turned into the main road that would eventually lead to Minnie’s house. Now the journey was rather boring and Minnie began to nod off. The bus went on running till it was well inside the city centre. At the first stop, Minnie and the majority of the passengers got off. Moving like a sleepwalker, Minnie walked round the corner to where she lived.

 

“Where have you been? We’ve had everybody out looking for you,” Minnie’s daughter, Florence, said.

“I don’t know where I’ve been. Is it over yet?” Minnie asked.

“No, it isn’t, and you have just about enough time to shower and get ready,” Florence told her.

Minnie went inside and up to her bedroom. She had already forgotten Florence’s words. The tidy bed looked very inviting, so she lay down on top of it and closed her eyes. But not for long, Florence and her other daughter, Farah, entered her bedroom and began nagging her to get up and get dressed. Much to her dismay, Minnie had no alternative but to cede to their demands and obey them. “You don’t need to wear all black if you don’t want to, it’s possible to wear black and white or grey,” Farah advised.

However, Minnie draped herself in black as tradition ordered, and she went downstairs accompanied by her two daughters. Her sons were there waiting for her.

The funeral cortege was long, and everyone who had known Minnie’s husband was present. They all carried flowers, and some of the women were crying.

 

As the coffin was lowered into the ground, Minnie thought to herself, “This is the first day of my life as a single woman. How on earth am I going to cope!”

Reviews

[S.S. Petrichor]

I really enjoyed how at the end you mentioned why she was lost. It gave this story more dimension, rather than it just being about a lost-in-the-sense-of-awareness-of-her-surroundings-and-direction elderly woman.