Untimely #3 — War Zones

It’s already hard enough with all the dirt and the flies and the dust and the pollution so you can’t even see the stars or the moon or even the sun for that matter just a great grey cloud of dust all the time and all smoggy like sucking on the exhaust pipe out back of the bus. Feeling it hot and dry out its pipe on your leg standing there in the traffic and the noxious fumes making you want to sick all over the cars on either side. And standing there in the middle jogging in place cause you’re too fast for the folks on the pavements you’d be knocking them down left and right and into traffic. Not like they’d even care, though, not like they’d even notice the difference ’cause they’re always running out into traffic anyway, always just pushing their babies out into traffic from between two buses so you can’t even see them, just sticking their prams out into the goddamn traffic of the goddamn road and there you are running along, running full steam ahead, and you might as well be running on the damn pavement then you know what I mean because these people they just want to die. Have a deathwish. Step out and meet Jesus my old man used to say. Step out and meet Jesus, he’d say, and still says it every time he comes down this stretch of road, running along, step out and meet Jesus, and I tell you it’s like a bloody war zone out there. Pushing their prams and their carriages and their buggies left right and everywhere. Babies in the middle of the street I ask you. And everybody running and what you supposed to do when along you’re coming full steam ahead and out pops a little baby in front and next to you to either side buses tall as the eye can see, buses blocking out the sun, what little of it gets past the great stinking cloud of dust and smoke and haze and heat. And so what do you do? What’s a fellow supposed to do?