Fit Sick

I kind of liked the 380 bus trip from Bondi beach. I constantly wondered why people always stood at one bus stop, despite there always being fifty people and a mad rush to get on. You see, if they walked back three minutes to the previous stop, they would be guaranteed a seat, every time. Maybe it was the heat. After all, it had been forty degrees the day before.

The bus meandered in it’s normal suicide manner up the hill and onto Oxford Street, the sky was blue and the shoppers were out in force. It felt good to have a seat and I reveled in a selfish manner at all the one stop after people who were struggling to keep their feet around the bends. Just as I was about to smile about this fact, I heard a cough behind me. Then another. Then an sigh. Then, well, then I felt what like appeared to be something on my back. As a payback for my seat smugness I had chosen the very seat where the guy behind had chosen to be sick on my back. Fantastic. Just as I was wallowing in self pity, I quickly came to forgive him. He was having a fit, the bus was stopped, some people stared, some people got off, an ambulance was called.

After getting off the bus my only option was to walk back, fully aware that I may have some epileptic fit sick on my back, my only consolation was the colour of my t-shirt, it was red. I was hoping that his diet that day consisted of strawberries and tomatoes and that the damage somehow blended into my attire, but I made sure I walked at a great pace and hoped nobody noticed.

There were three new people in the room. They had been asleep for the last two days but they were awake now. “Hi” one of them said, “have you had a good day?”. Well, there’s no point pretending I thought. “Well, not bad, same old really, beach, bus, man being sick on my back, same old story”. They gave me this strange and worried kind of look, being new to the city they probably wondered if people were sick on your back everyday. Well, I made sure they thought that by being as matter as fact as I could.

They were hear for a Christmas holiday break from Agricultural college. I could tell straight away. They spoke like they were distant relatives of the Queen, read Jilly Cooper books, adored Polo and had money, lots of it, well lots of daddies money. “I really don’t think I will like hostels” one of them said to her friend on the phone, “You actually have to share a bathroom with other people, I can’t believe it!. And the bunk beds are so squeaky, and there are no polo fields and they don’t have silver cutlery in the kitchen and there is no helipad…”. Well, I made the last bit up, but she was just about to mention that fact. I sighed; maybe the Ritz was all booked out.