Seeing is Believing in York

Seeing is believing 

What a lovely day.

It’s about 5pm on a beautiful Sunday evening and I’ve been sat on a wooden bench in the middle of York for the last hour or so enjoying just being out and about. I’ve lived in the city centre for about 3 years now and I love it. Everything is on my door step, shops, café’s, bars and restaurants. What more could a middle aged single guy want.

The sun is shining and it’s about 27 degrees. A perfect evening for just sitting here in my cargo shorts displaying my lily-white legs, my eyes hidden behind mirrored sunglasses bought in the market for a fiver and doing some people watching.

Tourists. Loads of them. 

Whenever I’m sat alone watching the world go by I play a little game with myself called Guess where they’re from. I try to guess what nationality people are from by the way they’re dressed, or how many cameras they have suspended round their necks. Sometimes it’s easy because I can hear them chatting to each as they saunter by, other times its damn near impossible. German. Polish. French. Chinese. Japanese. Thai…or Indonesian at least….and very occasionally…English. Who would have thought it in the middle of Yorkshires capital? An Englishman…or a couple of them. Amazing.

Wait a minute.

She looks lovely. Blonde hair. Slim build. 

She has got my full attention now so I sit up and rest my elbows on my knees trying not to make it obvious I’m looking at her.

Slowly she walks across the paved open area in front of me probably no more than a couple of yards away. 

I can almost smell her. 

I lean back and stretch my arms out along the back of the bench trying to be as cool as a middle aged man showing off his hairy legs in shorts can be as she ambles past. 

She is about 5’6’’ with long blonde hair held back by her sunglasses pulled over her head letting the world see her piercing blue eyes. She is wearing a loosely fitting white blouse, billowing slightly as she walks along in pink knee length shorts and white sandals. 

Beautiful.

As my eyes, hidden by mirrored sunglasses, follow her and study her slow and deliberate steps, she glances sideways, and I swear she smiles at me.

I immediately turn my head away for a second, like a child who’s been caught doing something it shouldn’t. I can feel my face blush with colour embarrassed at being caught…watching her…admiring her.

Love at first sight. Is that a real thing?  

When I turn my head back to look at her, she is already about ten yards further on and half way across a narrow bus-lane that the council have allowed to carve its way through the pedestrianized centre of York. Once across she sits gently down on a bench similar to the one I’m sat on and faces me. She looks straight at me and this time I don’t turn away. I keep my eyes fixed on her hoping that my sunglasses make it impossible for her to see what my eyes are doing. Watching her.

She looks at me for a couple of seconds before starting to search in her brown leather handbag for something. She pulls out a mobile phone and begins a conversation which at first looks like a normal chat we would all have.  She smiles several times revealing a wonderful smile that would light anyone’s day…sometimes breaking into a full blown laugh. Already I feel a tinge of jealousy of whoever is on the other end of the call.

Suddenly the call seems to take a darker turn and her delightful smile fades into a scowl with tears forming in her eyes. Even from where I am sat I can see her eyes begin to glisten in the evening sun and tears cascade down the almost-perfect lily-white skin of her cheeks. She swaps her mobile phone over to her other hand and thumps it against her ear frantically waving her free hand around in front of her.

She’s obviously upset and appears to be arguing with the person on the other end of the phone. She sits bolt-upright and throws her head back running her hand through her hair…again and again. I can’t take my eyes off her. She’s beautiful.

Abruptly she takes the phone from her ear stabbing with her finger at its screen and then slamming it down on the bench beside her.

I can see her eyes are clenched tight. Her arms are shoved rigidly down either side of her body grasping on to the slats of the bench. She begins to rock slowly back and forth obviously distressed.

York city centre is full of people milling about but they are oblivious to her and completely unaware of the drama that is playing out in front of them.

She is in pain.

Should I go across and talk to her. No. Definitely not. She will think I’m a weirdo. She has seen me watching her so she will more than likely think I’m a stalker at the very least.

But I feel I have to do something. What? And why?

I don’t even know this woman.  For all I know she’s just been arguing with her bank about an overdraft…or she’s just been sacked from her job for stealing stationery.

No. It’s a lover. I can tell. Definitely the husband or a boyfriend.

I want to do something. I have to do something.

Any minute now she could stand up and walk away and that would be it…I would never see her again.

I can see she is upset and confused. She keeps turning her head one way and then the other, looking up and down the street as if she is looking for something…or someone.

I lean forward slightly and pull my sunglasses down and rest them on my nose so I can get a better look at her when completely unintentionally my eyes catch hers. She stares directly at me for what seems an eternity, but in reality is only a few seconds. I hold my nerve and keep my eyes fixed on hers.

This is it. The moment I’ve been waiting for. 

I take a deep breath, puff out my chest….and just as I’m about to stand up, she grabs at her phone on the bench and throws it into her bag. In the same instant she leaps to her feet looking straight at me. Is she going to come across to me?

Shocked and without looking away from her I jump to my feet, scaring a few pigeons scavenging for crumbs on the pavement in front of me.

I begin to move towards her and I can see she is already at the curbs edge.

But wait. There’s something coming along the road. Fast. Much too fast. It’s a bus.

I can see she hasn’t seen it and steps off the pavement into the path of the oncoming juggernaut. At that heart-stopping moment everything seems to flow in slow motion. I try to call out to her but my throat is dry. I cough and try again.

‘WATCH OUT.’ I yell at the top of my voice. ‘STOP.’

She doesn’t hear me and takes another step, oblivious to the impending impact.

I freeze to the spot and close my eyes as the bus collides with her head-on.

Except.

There is not screeching of brakes. No bone-crunching thud or scream. Noting.

I spin round in utter disbelief that no-one else saw the accident and that the bus didn’t stop.

Everyone and everything continues as if nothing happened.

What’s going on?

I turn back to see her calmly walking across the remainder of the road and directly towards me. I’m completely confused and stand motionless with my mouth wide open, as she approaches me.

‘How…Didn’t you see the bus?’ I splutter.

She doesn’t reply. In fact she doesn’t even acknowledge me…as if I don’t exist.

‘Excuse me but…’ I try to say as something happens that only happens in horror films.

She walked straight through me.

I mean she walks through my body as if I’m not even there.

I whirl round just in time to see her walking across the pedestrian area but instead of bumping into people she walks through them…just as she had done to me.

My shoulders droop and every piece of reality I have come to believe in begins swirling around in my head.

What have I just witnessed?

I feel a slight push on my shoulder. And then again.

‘Excuse me.’ I hear faintly.

‘Excuse me. Are you alright?’ Says an elderly lady stood next to me. ‘Did you drop these sunglasses?’

‘Oh…Yes…Thank you.’ I reply still in shock holding out a hand for the glasses.

‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost.’ She says handing them to me.

‘Well…Yes. I think I have.’ 

‘Was she blonde?’ She says looking at me with a twinkle in her eye.

‘Yes…Yes she was. Blonde and beautiful.’ 

‘That’ll be the lady that was knocked down by a bus a few years ago. She keeps showing up from time to time. No-one knows why. They never found out why she didn’t see it coming. Poor thing.’ Said the old lady taking out an orange from her bag and sitting down on the bench where I had been. ‘Come and talk to me for a while. It’s such a lovely evening.’

‘I will…yes…you know what… I have an idea as to why she didn’t see the bus.’ I said slowly sitting down beside her.

‘Really dear. Tell me all about it…..

The End.