Nearly ten o'clock on a Monday evening, a rail replacement bus service awaits to convey me from Colchester to Ipswich. I get on the coach (a very nice one, I must say) and look down the vehicle. Every pair of seats has one person in them and so, noticing that there's a spare seat in the front row, I politely ask the person occupying the aisle seat, his briefcase occupying the other seat, if I could take it. He looks at me. He looks over his shoulder down the coach. He looks at me again, as if to say, "why are you bothering me?".
I stand my ground. I'd quite like to sit at the front, and the seat isn't occupied, much as though he'd like it to stay that way. Eventually, with agonising slowness, he gathers himself together, evidently hoping that I might still give up and go elsewhere. I don't. He gets up, makes room, and I settle in the corner, placing my bags in front of me and my iPad on the shelf in front of us. He sits down again, struggles with the seatbelt. He is not happy.
We don't talk...
In the course of the journey, a passenger approaches the driver to ask if he'll drop him off in the Ipswich suburbs. No dice. My neighbour makes some comment, to which the other passenger responds jokingly. It doesn't go down well.
On arrival in Ipswich, we get off of the coach. Further words are exchanged, hostile ones on the part of my neighbour. I leave him in his unhappiness at the world.
He really must be very unhappy...
