the abyss means...

I got the bus home this evening. This would normally not be worth mentioning (to anyone) but this time something a little different happened.

(Don't get excited just yet.)

A man got on the bus to check that we all had tickets. This has never happened to me on a Brighton bus before, and it took me a while to find the ticket stub that I had scrunched up and thrown into my pocket.

After the man passed me; suited, clipboard in hand and greying hair on his head, I heard his voice.

I recognised it instantly.

He sounded exactly like Prosser from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. An example:

FORD: And can we also assume that he’s going to be staying here all day?
PROSSER: So?
FORD: So all your men are going to be standing around all day, doing nothing.
PROSSER: Could be.
FORD: Well, if you’re resigned to doing that anyway, you don’t actually need him to stand here all the time, do you?
PROSSER: What?
FORD: (patiently) You don’t actually need him here.
PROSSER: (considering) Well, no, not as such.… Not exactly need.…

He sounded exactly the same. Not just similar, but the same. He had the same accent, the same pitch of voice, the same manner of speaking, everything.

(He was probably taking a break from 'working' on the pier; instead of whistling I can see him singing: 'Slip sliding away, slip sliding away. You know the nearer your destination, the more you slip sliding away.')

And he carried a clipboard.

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Weird. I get checked a lot. Very often an inspector gets on at either Chruchill Square or the Open Market. some times at Lewes Road where the depot is an accomplice will join him.

Must be some sort of bus inspector balancing act...

E xx

Esther on January 22, 2003 05:01 PM