School Bus - Rhesus Negative

At the end of a school day we congregated at the bus station, a hideous concrete monstrosity in the centre of Aylesbury. Our pockets filled with Coca Cola cubes and strawberry laces, we waited for the number 64 to arrive. As we knocked a slowly deflating football between us an ominous shadow materialised. The shadow belonged to one of the Sir Henry Floyd Grammar School's resident nutters, John Dent (not his real name). 
Ordinarily when a nutter approached us, we would cower in fear and trepidation but this nutter was different - he was our nutter. Despite being three years our senior John had befriended us for no apparent reason one day and we saw no reason to convince him otherwise. As we saw it, the relationship was balanced quite well - he didn't kick the crap out of us and in return, we listened to his inane drivel. He was not an eloquent individual and frequently erred on the side of bigotry, misogyny and racism, which often made us visibly wince - a reaction that had to be quickly disguised for fear of violent reprisals. He was also an habitual smoker, more for image than relief I am sure.
So there we stood, wincing and coughing as a bus approached. Glancing up, John took a long drag on his cigarette and proclaimed "This is me boys, I'm off".
He then did something that will stick in my mind as long as I live. He flicked the cigarette with all the cool he could muster. A benign act in other circumstances but in this instance he hadn't accounted for a rogue cross wind that caught the fag end and blew it up and arching back over his head. We watched in awe as it sailed through the air and plopped casually into the centre of a blue fluffy hat that perched cosily on the head of an elderly lady.
We all froze.
Oblivious to the situation that had just occurred, the lady boarded the bus and waited patiently for her turn to have her ticket stamped.
We turned to John who by now had turned a sickly shade of white. He gulped visibly and tears welled in the corners of his eyes. "What should I do boys?" he asked.
"Well you should probably put her out John." came the reply.
John whipped round and ran to the bus, he pushed his way to the front of the queue just as the pensioner was walking down the aisle to take a back seat. The other passengers had not yet noticed the plumes of smoke that were drifting up from the folds of the fluffy hat, but we had. We watched as small flames began to lick the faux fur as the smouldering cigarette began to ignite.

Having pushed past the other passengers John reached the lady as the bus pulled away. The last sight we saw was John launching himself at the old dear, his arms flailing.

Scared and bewildered - Rhesus Positive

Wrenched from the safety of sleep I blink fearfully up at the blazing light that suddenly fills the room. Pain and exhaustion flow through my body, taking my breath away. Then the screaming starts. She barks at me in a language I do not understand, which is both disorientating and terrifying. I plead for clemency but her wrath has overtaken her and she no longer acknowledges my attempts at meaningful communication. Glancing over, I notice that my fellow captive is unconscious. My mind reels at the horrors she has meted out and fear strikes me as I realise that I am next. I promise her that I will find food to sate her ever-increasing appetite but she just screams again and kicks out. I flinch and draw back, praying for the night to envelope me once again. Her shouts become louder and more insistent and my ears ring. I promise to change but she just flings faeces at me in protest. It hits my bare leg and runs down onto the already stained floor. I am now truly broken, at my lowest ebb. "What do you want?" I cry, "I don't know what you want, please tell me!" but she just stares impassively back. Her eyelids flicker, she is now looking past me. Her screams subside and she falls effortlessly to sleep.

I change her nappy, clean up the mess, redress her and slip her back into her cot. I take a long last look into my daughter's now angelic face before crawling back to bed and escape into sleep.

Hair - Rhesus Negative

On a grey day in Glenrothes - Fife, I was preparing to visit a friend in Glasgow. As a diehard punk I pulled on my most rock and roll attire and headed to the bathroom to get my hair in order. Until I discovered the joys of red Dax Wax I would use standard hair gel and tonnes of hairspray to scrape my hair into nasty spikes a la Sid Vicious. On this day I was dismayed to discover that that my supplies of hair product had run dry so I was forced to improvise. I grabbed a bar of soap and sprinkled it lightly with water to achieve a mild foam, which I massaged into my locks before administering a hair dryer to set the spikes in place. It worked better than I could have imagined and pleased with the result I headed out. By this time I was running late so I jogged towards the nearest bus stop as the ubiquitous Scottish drizzle stung my eyes. I saw the bus approaching over the crest of the hill and my jog turned to a sprint. The rain got heavier and I began to dodge puddles to avoid ruining my leopard print trainers. I made the bus just in time and jumped aboard. The driver looked at me with surprise in his eyes and as I walked down the aisle other passengers looked up with a mixture of fear and confusion. I strode to the back of the bus, satisfied that I must be looking pretty mean. I slouched on the back seat and gazed out of the window as the rain pummeled the glass. A trickle of water ran down my forehead, tickling my chilled skin. I reached up to wipe it away and as I drew my hand away I was shocked to find my fingers covered in a light foam. I panicked and rubbed my hand through my hair only to find more foam. I began to rub my hair ever more frantically in an attempt to remove the suds but the mixture of the Scottish rain and the heavily caked soap only made things worse. My fellow passengers began to glance back at me as I slowly lathered up on the back seat.

Had any passing motorists looked up at the bus, they would have seen a panicked young man in a studded jacket washing his hair.