A few weeks ago, I was waiting for a bus. It was chucking it down, it was cold, it was match day, the bus strikes were in-progress. It was grim.
There were at least fifty people at my bus stop (no exaggeration) and at least three number one buses hadn’t showed. I was beginning to lose the will to go on.
Then I saw something that changed my mind – that, in fact, inspired me.
I was battling with whether or not to get a taxi, checking the prices on my phone, when I heard a SMASH.
It wasn’t a big smash, but it was a smash nonetheless. I looked up and located the source of the smash – someone else waiting for the bus.
A wonderful woman was standing at the other end of the bus stop from me, and had got out of her bag a Terry’s Chocolate orange. She had then proceeded to smash it on the side of the metal bus stop, not caring one bit for the people staring at her, in order to break up the segments.
“What an absolute legend!”, I thought to myself.
She then opened up the chocolate orange and took out the centre bit (the best bit) and ate it, followed by a couple of segments, before wrapping it back up in the orange foil and placing it back into her bag like nothing had happened.
Now, I hate oranges (as is well documented, including in a poem and the illustration matched with this blog post), but a chocolate orange is a whole other story. I love a chocolate orange – my Nanna used to put them in our stockings at Christmas time, which she would fill with all manner of snacks and schnide ‘Hike’ (rather than Nike) socks.
This moment stuck in my mind for a week or so, and I decided to write a poem about it.
So, to the random woman at the bus stop, who was bold enough to do what we all wish we had done, here is a poem for you:
Terry’s Chocolate Orange at the Bus Stop
I want to have the courage to bash open
a Terry’s Chocolate Orange
at the bus stop – no –
on the bus stop .
To smash it on the paint-flaked metal
in front of a 5pm Friday-night bus queue
and unwrap it, right there.
To spread it open and hold the sweet, rich centre in my hand –
it is the best bit, after all.
I want to let the taste spread over my tongue and
not think one jot about the gathering of people watching it all
unfold in my mouth –
They’ll, outwardly, abhor my brazen but
ultimately, they’ll wish that my hand was their hand,
my tongue was their tongue –
and they’ll not be able to get the thought of either out of their minds
on the bus ride home.