Sainthood

By Greyhound to Memphis. An armed policeman behind the counter in the bus station watches us menacingly. What have we done? Something very wrong, we feel. There's something very wrong with us. – 'With you', W. says. 'Even he can sense it'.

On the bus, we head to the back seats, by the toilet. You get less carsick there, that's my reasoning. And you can watch everyone, you can see what's going on. W.'s happy to be led.

But something terrible must have happened in the toilet, we sense it as the bus fills up. There's a terrible smell. My God! What's wrong!

We set off. The bus is full, and we're trapped in the back seats by the door. The smell, the dreadful smell! Whose idea was it to sit on the back seat? Who demanded to sit there lest he get carsick? But W. blames himself. Why does he always follow me into the teeth of the catastrophe?

A passenger opens the door. – 'Don't do it', we told her. She gasps and crosses herself. - 'You're a brave woman'. Another approaches with an air freshener, holding it out before her as she opens the door and spraying it in the sign of the cross.

But it still smells. It smells terrible. We hold orange skins to our noses. We're suffocating. A third passenger comes to the door. She opens it, and goes in. We look at each other. She went in! Is she mad?

Minutes pass. We hear humming from inside. And then she emerges, smiling. No sound of a flush. She's cleaned the loo, says W. She cleaned it, for us. For everyone. We sit in awe. That's sainthood, says W.