Empathy on the Bus

The child continued to scream even after the mother had paid the fare and settled down gratefully into a seat.  The child remained in its pushchair, but the brake had to be applied, so rocking was not possible.  A gentle push to and fro is what usually sends them off.  Instead, the mother hoped that the burr of the engine would soothe her child to sleep.  One or two older people tutted as the precise pitch of the screaming was delivered straight into their eardrums by their hearing aids.  One woman ostentatiously turned hers off.  Another offered a solution under her breath – “take the damn thing out of its pram.”

But the mother was determined to remain firm.  Sleep time means no cuddles, no matter how loud you scream.  I’m all out of cuddles just now.  She leaned forward and in a compromise to appease other passengers, took her child’s fist in her hand and began to stroke it with her worn out, steriliser-raw thumb.

A woman in the adjacent seat looked over at the mother; too distracted from her book to read anymore.  She wasn’t annoyed, like those whose child rearing days were long past.  She simply felt relief that the child wasn’t hers.  That her children were safely in school and that she would be able to walk away from that heartbreaking sound.  Those days were not so long ago, when she felt just like this mother looked.  Exhausted not even strong enough a word.  She remembered the nights sat on the landing, sobbing because her child wouldn’t sleep and her office desk awaited her in 4 hours time.  That determination that normal life must continue, even in the face of a tyrant who communicates only through nuances of top volume.  She wanted to tell her that it would end one day.  Sooner than she knew.  But the bus stop loomed. And the child began to mew dozily.  Instead, she gave a conspiratorial smile and walked on.