The Man on the bendybus

A man appeared on the bendy bus as the bus snaked between New Cross and Lewisham. The man was caked in dirt ,black with filthy fingers raw with injury. He tried to hide from the driver by squatting in the centre of the bendy part of the bus taking intermittent swigs from a can of illicit lager. The distinctive lager stink wafted occasionally in my direction. When the bus judders I saw the man's wounded fingers as he grasped the hand rail beside me. The man was confused and made a false recognition of a mistaken friend who pretended knowledge to make fun, a sort of odd sport that some make of drunks and the mentally infirm. The delusion was momentarily a fantasy between the two men till realisation struck the drunken man who slumped down on the bus floor in obvious dejection grabbed for the near empty lager can to satisfy an endless need. He cursed the can when it ultimately became empty.