'At the bus stop' by Kinneson Lalor

The woman in the red parka—who normally smells like nothing, maybe a little musty—is today a frequency sharper than clove. In the seams of her parka, there’s something powdery I’ve not noticed before. It could be mould. It could be something else.

I step closer, pretend to tie my shoelace. She tilts her head to me as I inhale. The rain splashes from the pavement onto my chin. When she catches my eye and smiles, I’m slow as a fern. Fine hairs spark on my chest, spores of me blown on the wet wind. They find a home in the crack under her shoes. The shoes are scuffed but sensible, slightly worn at the toe of the sole as if she rocks forward, waiting.

‘Alright?’ I say, and immediately regret it.

‘Alright,’ she says and the sound is cinnamon, dry and warm and stuck on my tongue.

I nod, chew nothing. I want to step back but I can’t, caught in the circumference of her scent. I stare at the dusty substance in the seams of her jacket. She looks to the road.

We stay exactly that far apart until the bus comes. She hails it. I almost don’t get on. This feels like the best thing I can achieve today. But I do get on. And I sit in the same seat I always do.

She doesn’t always sit in the same seat. Sometimes she gives her seat up for someone else and stands, hand tight around the rubber strap. Today, she stands beside me.

‘Alright if I sit here?’ she asks.

‘Alright.’