Next Stop

Published on by robeanne

Sometimes I feel inspired to jot my random thoughts down on paper… don’t know why and, to be honest, it doesn’t happen often. Somehow the repetition of the ‘Next Stop’ message on the bus from the airport to work jolted my vaguely creative brain. I wish I’d thought to take photos out of the bus window. But I didn’t, so you just have my words instead. Not as pretty but they’ll have to do.

Read below or open the ebook.

Next Stop

Dark morning, cold. Sleepless night.

Always the same when I set the alarm for an early start.
5am. Slow start, porridge for breakfast
Bleary eyed boy woken from slumber. Pay back time. Taxi duties.

Next stop. Hamilton. No longer an “international” airport.

Window seat. Murmurs of hellos and excuse mes as passengers board. Morning Politeness. Sleep deprived commuters.

Briefcases and laptops. Headphones plugged in. Noses in books.

Tip tapping on keyboards. Safe in our worlds. Wordless.

Next stop. Christchurch International airport.

Dark gives way to light almost unnoticeably. Head in my book I sense the lightening of the sky.

Then snow capped mountains, sunkissed. Clouds cling to mountainsides and sink in the valleys. A shade of white separates cloud from snow.

Morning light shin8ng on tops of mountains. View from the air. Cloud in the valleys.

Mountains viewed from the air, covers with snow. Cloud in the valleys.

Turn over the Canterbury Plains, enveloped in cloud, nose towards a rising sun. Too soon we dip into the cloud, missing the sun.

On the right mountains, dark seen from above. To the left the cloud covers the ground.

Nose cone of a plane heading into the rising sun. Propeller motion frozen in black stripes against the blue sky. Clouds below.
From light back to darkness. Christchurch beneath cloud. Dampness seeps into my bones as we caterpillar across the tarmac. Heads down, shouldering bags.  

Next stop. Bus stop. One to Kilmore Street please.

QR code. Commuting stories. Travellers’ tales. Hermione’s pocket. Full of magical things.

Next stop. Memorial Ave. Houses are shadows through the mist.

Next stop. Fendalton Street. Rugged up, scarves and hats, briskly walking bending into the cold.

Next stop. Harper Ave. Tall silhouette trees. Ethereal giants.
a large tree growing on the right of the photo with branches sprading over the top and to the right. In the background across the grass there are more trees just visible through the mistNearly there. Next stop Manchester Street near Kilmore Street.

St Luke’s bell tower. Ready to ring the bell. All that’s left. Labyrinth and memories. 

Next stop?

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