Mole

The cat is really attentive this morning, rubbing the feline back on human legs, then against a calca em preto, then she runs off to the kitchen. The small light with the dim LED light gives just enough light to see, to gather the clothing for the day.

Upon leaving the house, the cat waits in front of the street door. Perhaps she wants to go out into the dark street too. Shoo her down the corridor, she may not leave the house. The alley leads straight down towards the tall window at the end of the church, the window taller than all of the surrounding houses. Even from the rear, the church is huge, like a cathedral. Leave the church and its attendant grave yard behind, cross the main street, the old town market, and go on down to the town gate by the river. The pedestrian zone ends there, and the main road goes on to cross the bridge. The bus stop’s shelter at this junction is already inhabited by an older woman of Turkish descent and a man with brilliant white hair, today only these two. The old woman s sad expression breaks into a smile, good morning, and the man smiles, nods and wishes a good morning too. Return these greetings. Because of the sad expression, let us call the woman Dolores, the man is the bog cotton man. His hair is like the tufts of big cotton in the Dublin mountains. There have never been any introductions made, so that these names will have to do. Look out over the river, the water reflects all the coloured lights from the building opposite, the interior lights and the street lights, the cool white and the warm white lamps, the sodium lamps and the mercury vapour lamps. The reflections are visible as streaks on the rippled surface of the river, the river itself still black from the reflection of the sky. 

There is a sound of brakes, the bus has arrived. Turn around, Dolores and the bog cotton man are on board already, paying their fares to the driver.

Then,just in time, an officious young man in dressy clothing arrives. He looks like an office worker, an administrator or a teacher.

been arriving just as the bus leaves for the past few years. A very punctual man.

Pay the driver, a ten Euro note and a twenty cent coin. Nine Euros change, put them into the wallet. A woman with an apple-like face, an unfresh apple, looks up, she is always grumpy, she moves over to allow passage,

sit down at the rear of the bus, just as it is leaving, and just watch, people getting up to leave, people boarding. The bus has five steps, the railway station is the last one. The woman with the apple face gets up early, she always wants to be the first to leave the bus.

The station forecourt is bare of people, but for a man sweeping the granite stairs leading up to the entrance of the station, and a fat man smoking a cigarette at the ashtray.

get a coffee at Yorma’s cafe, served by a black haired women with a mole on her chin.