Bound Together

I first caught sight of them as my bus turned the corner, gazing through the windscreen as I clung on to the bar.

They were necking at the bus stop in the rain: an elderly couple, he stooping, she on tiptoe, heads gently tilted, eyes lightly closed.

He'd burrowed his hands into the pockets of her raincoat; her's were on his face, brushing back his wet white hair and curling it behind the ears. We all thought they were waiting for the bus, so we stopped and waited ourselves.

The doors opened, but they did not come. They did not even look, his back angled towards the road, oblivious to the bus-full of passengers who were, for that minute, their audience, tapping at the window of their world.

We waited and watched. His hands were on her bottom now, I think, grasping through the pockets of her coat and the starched linen of her skirt. Their faces were creased up, wrinkles interlocked, gathered together in a comfortable fervour.

The doors closed - the bus rolled on, but our attention did not. Through the rain-flecked windows, the elderly couple continued to embrace, bound still together as they drifted from our view.