Page 47 of The Second Chance Bus Stop

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The Rent-a-Safe manager will miss this routine when he retires. What new routines will he have when he no longer opens the

facility up with the keypad at eight every morning? When he doesn’t make his coffee in the small staff room at nine, inspecting

the shared fridge and bin carefully to identify any offences: un-labelled personal food items, expired food, glass in the

food-waste bin. And when he won’t take his Tupperware out of said fridge at precisely twelve fifteen and place it on the glass

plate of the white microwave, which has been there almost as long as he has.

His wife seems to have a lot of routines.

None of which he is part of. Cleaning the kitchen on Mondays, the bathroom on Tuesdays, stroking her face at night with those round cotton discs that don’t fluff like the loose stuff, two chapters read before turning out the lights each night.

He wants to sleep right away, when his head touches the pillow, but he bears it for her, the light.

Waits quietly until she places a floral bookmark in her novel and rolls to her side and flicks the light switch to make it all dark and peaceful.

He’s never told her that he waits for her.

Maybe she doesn’t know? But this is the thing with words: they fall into routines of their own, and his were never to say, ‘I love you’, ‘Thank you’ and ‘I’ll wait to sleep until you’re ready because you’re my person in this world. ’

He shakes his head and turns now to a routine he does know. Something he can handle. The English number he will keep calling

until he hands in his key and picks up his last check.

He listens as it dials, then to the generic voicemail greeting he’s spoken to a couple of times. Read his number out and hoped

they’d call back.

No one ever did.

He stands up and takes his mug in his hand, heading to the back kitchen for a coffee refill. One more week with his routine.