The cards on the bus.

The cards on the bus

Sitting on the back of a bus hobby noticed a deck of cards. Old cards. The box had been opened. It looked far removed from new. The words on the side had faded with age. Some of them had been scratched off as if the previous owner of the cards had flaked along the side of the card with their finger nails. The two small flaps at the open end of the box were grey on the inside and the edges were soft and crumpled. They were not clean and sharp. The cards themselves, were dressed comfortably in layers of grime and dirt. Passed between so many different hands over the years.

On the back of the bus
on the back of the bus
my hearts been shot
with a blunderbuss

On the back of the bus
on the back of the bus
my clubs a wooden spoon
wrapped up in socks

On the back of the bus
on the back of the bus
my diamonds a scissor snip
quick quick quick

On the back of the bus
on the back of the bus
my spades a floating
apple,

This pack. A single deck of cards. Just sat electanlcally searching across the hall of a sunken submarine shattered wall draw my hole like a shard of icing into the veins splashing out awkardly and a walking on the rein deers lights in flash of my head the the next drum kicked up a snare into the tumbling fallk sound of stops whistles and hellos to everybody this bus ross weady roll flotsom in the jet stream.

I missed the bell which meant i got to get off at the stop after the stop after next how about one more, Scoob it suba diver.

Lille wanderings, whispers are alive, i can hear the tinkling bell and clippity clump of a dog with spots running down the stairs. All the while sat on the patterns next to me was the open box of playing cards. I slid out them out, the whole deck into my hand, do it do it do it,

i could tell their age without even looking at them, they felt weighted, if you know what i mean. They had the look. They did of being passed back and forth across many different tables, many different lifes, and peoples. Players. Or not. This ordinary pack of playing cards, i felt, was far from ordinary. It was in fact very special indeed. I almost but not quite left them.
Completely ignored them and left them.
I know. How could i think such a thing. Honestly though, those are how my thoughts ran, what if these cards have been left here on purpose. Perhaps for someone to find. What if that person, wasnt meant to be me. Or what if this pack of cards wasnt meant to be left at all. What if they absent mindedly fell out of a pocket or bag or where just forgotten about. Maybe the true owner of the pack would want them back. Maybe the pack of cards were never meant to be owned at all, maybe they just happened to like riding on the back of a bus.


As i thought this the pack of cards in my hand grew heavier and heavier and warmer in temperature. They seemed to talk to me each card togethor as one. The box grew hotter and hotter. You were right to find us, you were the one we were waiting for.

I believed the cards voices in my mind there was no way they could be sat so, elegantly, invitingly, in the middle of the seat, top of the box open, by chance or the movements, rumblings and bumps of the bus. To sit so square and neat, the box of cards must have been put there in order for someone to find. I felt it was right, that i had the pack of cards. On the back of the bus i decided to curb my excitement. Putting the pack in the top pocket of my shirt, i closed my eyes and went to sleep. Deciding that i would take out and look at the cards later on, when i was not on the bus.