Country roads

On Friday evening, having just stepped off the county bus somewhere in Derbyshire, I made the not-altogether wise decision to walk the remaining three miles to my mother's house. It was treacherous underfoot, the snow having mostly melted to slush during the day, but now thoroughly frozen and very slippy. I was in the mood for walking nonetheless, so that was what I opted for rather than a taxi or waiting for another connecting bus.

About 15 minutes into my journey I was at the bottom of a hill, and noticed that a bus was coming down the road behind me: just ahead was a bus stop. I didn't bother capitalizing on this state of affairs. What caught my attention, however, was the chap who was waiting at the stop, and talking into his mobile phone.

Well - when I say talking, it very quickly became shouting.

"Fat twat! You're a fat twat!!!!"

Shouting became screaming.

"YOU!!! FAT!!! TWATTTTTTT!!!!"

At the top of his voice.

I'd walked past him by this point, and turned round to look at him. The bus had pulled up and he got on (presumably he'd brought the phone call to an end).

I mused, as I trudged my way up the long road to the top of the hill, that I had perhaps made the right decision to proceed a pied, despite it taking twice as long as it usually would because of the care I was taking not to slip and fall on my backside.

Things got a little easier - though still slippy - when the ground beneath my feet finally levelled out and I now proceeded the straight walk along the common.

I carried on walking at as steady a pace as the conditions allowed - it was now around 20 minutes since I had been at the bottom of the hill. Half way down the common, I heard a strangely-familiar commotion emanating from a bus stop ahead of me.

"YOU FATTTT FUCKING TWATTTT!!!!"

He screamed these words repeatedly down the phone, practically bent double as to spew them forth with as much bile as he could muster.

"Fucking hell," I said under my breath, as though there wasn't enough swearing happening in the first place. If he'd got off the bus at this stop, he must have been here for at least 15 minutes.

Perhaps the presence of me and that of another passer-by broke him out of his reverie (if that's the right word) - he put the phone back in his pocket and exited the bus stop, crossing the road and presumably heading home (and not, I guessed/hoped, to where the recipient of the phone call lived).

Still, he wasn't entirely out of his reverie.

"CUNT!!!" he shouted at no-one in particular, followed by a strangely self-conscious "heheh!" before heading off the road and down a lane.

One can only imagine what kind of weekend he had. Mine was blighted by a stomach upset which made me feel like I had eaten a small boulder, and which left me shivery and feverish and I couldn't even feel my finger ends. Thankfully I've more or less recovered.