Diary of the Displaced Read Online Free PDF Page B

around the corner from the bus, was a small heap of mangled up bicycles and prams. None of them were in a condition to be used as they were, but it did mean one thing to me. Wheels. I’m determined to fix up one of the prams to use as a cart. I wouldn’t have to lug everything around on my back.
    Will pass by the pile on the way back to the camp. A second reason to take a different route back there.
    I hope the zombies have gone.
    Day 13
    To say that today has been an interesting experience would be an understatement, but before I go into that I need to sort out last night’s dream, in my head.
    I hadn’t even noticed until I woke up, that I hadn’t been having any dreams at all that I could remember. I used to dream so vividly before; back in the real world (is that the right thing to call it? This place seems real). It’s strange that I don’t recall dreaming at all whilst I’ve been here, so much so that I’d forgotten all about it until last night.
    It started off a bit vague. Don’t all dreams start that way? I was on a bus that was driving slowly through London, like the world was going through one of those film clips that they play in slow motion, so that you don’t miss the details they cleverly placed in there. It wasn’t as slow as a film, but the dial was definitely turned down slightly. Everyone outside the bus was walking slower, and everyone inside the bus seemed to be in complete time stop, apart from me, and one old fellow who was sitting right at the front of the bus, smoking a pipe and chattering to himself.
    I recognised the route the bus was taking. I’d taken it many times when I’d been working in the East End of London, years ago, back when I was just learning the trade. It always worked out easier to park up and go by bus than to drive through the streets.
    As always on that journey, I watched the busy traffic outside and occasionally glanced down at my newspaper. The print in the paper seemed to be changing every time I looked at it, though I wasn’t turning the pages. Then it occurred to me. Had I been there before on this bus? I mean on this particular bus.
    Yes, I had.
    It was a long time ago, back when I was a kid. The theatre poster stuck on the top panel over the stairs, the one slightly torn in one corner, was identical to the one I saw back then. I was convinced of it. I was very young at the time and out on a day trip with my parents, to the London Museums. It was the exact same poster.
    I remember the old man getting off of the bus a stop before us. He peered at me as he went by, and my dad nearly leapt out of the stall behind me. The old boy just smiled at me, and pointed at the empty cream soda bottle that I had been sitting squeezing the air out of, so it made a whistling sound. I remembered him so clearly because of his distinctive appearance. He was scruffy beyond scruffy, half of his clothes in tatters, with rips and holes dotted all about him. I think his boots were held together with masking tape or something similar. His beard was long and plaited, almost like thin dreadlocks, with multicoloured string, or threads of some sort, woven into the plaits. How he managed it, I don’t know, but he must have been wearing at least six or maybe seven layers of coats and jumpers in varying stages of disrepair. Finally, there was the hat. A baseball cap that had faded over the many years that he must have been wearing it, until it was a light shade of muddy brown. That hadn’t stopped him from attaching about half a million tiny pin badges to it.
    He had the strangest face I think I’ve ever seen. His nose was huge and bulbous, his eyes deeply inset and smaller than I thought was possible. To me, he looked exactly like I had imagined a goblin would appear, except grimier, if you could get grimier than a goblin.
    “You finished with that son?” He had said with a wink. I just stared at him and held the bottle out. I imagine that my mouth was wide open, my jaw ready to bounce