On the Peasant Wagon

It is about a million degrees on here, and my skin keeps trying to leave.

She messages the doctor about hot flushes, as if a screen could cool a bloodstream.

The reply will take days; the sweating is punctual.

They rattle through the less salubrious bits of Sheffield, where the brickwork has learned to squint.

Outside: shuttered takeaways, a mattress by a wall, a fox with the look of a shifty landlord that just shat in someones coffee.

Inside: a bus that smells of warm coins and somebody’s fresh regret.

People fold into seats like laundry nobody wanted to hang and couldnt be bothered to wash.

The windows are sealed, as if fresh air is contraband or maybe just to keep the poor people in

She calls it a peasant wagon, as it is, full of elbows, bags, and the thin patience of strangers that cant afford chauffeurs.

The heat is boring, which is its own kind of cruelty.

I said, See it like an adventure

because I am not the one with sweat pooling in my bra line.

Character building, like adding salt to a meal that is already salty.

She laughs, because she’s good at humour when the world is being rude.

Her face shines; not joy, not tragedy, just being.

The lost purse is a small myth now, a cautionary tale that still needs its ending.

Each stop feels like opening an oven to check on something you didn’t bake.

But not like a pre war German!

A man in a hi-vis vest sleeps with his mouth open, catching the day like dust.

A teenager scrolls, thumb moving faster than the bus ever will.

We pass a pub at noon, a lady pushing a pram and smoking...

My phone buzzes; not the doctor, just a promotional email offering “cooling solutions”.

Hot flushes make time strange: the minutes stretch, the body argues with itself.

And she may get grumpy but never argues with me

And I appreciate that!

She says she can suffer over nothing, and I believe her, because nothing is often the sharpest thing.

Sheffield rolls by in scruffed-up panels: corner shops, graffiti, a tree insisting on trying to reach the sky.

I think about the word salubrious, how it taste like a promise you can’t cash on this route.

When the bus lurches, everyone sways together, a brief democracy of imbalance.

Life is still good.