Beyond Isaiah

Chapter 1 'Jack'

‘Thy dead men shall live, together with my dead body shall they arise. Awake and sing, ye that dwell in dust: for thy dew is as the dew of herbs, and the earth shall cast out the dead.’ Isaiah ch.26 v.19

Jack looked at his watch for the umpteenth time. The bus was already ten minutes late. He rolled his eyes at the young woman who was also wearing a business suit standing with him under the Perspex shelter.

‘Only ever happens when you’re in a hurry,’ he said.

She smiled and gave him a stifled laugh of agreement. It was the wrong day for his car to break down. He had a meeting with the area manager first thing and needed to meet with an important client later on to appease some problems over supply.

As sales manager he always got the awkward ones. It’s not his fault supply lines were a nightmare at the moment, all imports and exports were a struggle. But as always the buck stopped with him in the company and he would graciously take the blame, that’s what they paid him for.

Finally the bus pulled up to the curb and with a whoosh of air the doors clattered open. Always the gentleman he let the smartly dressed woman get on first. As she walked down the aisle to get a seat he noticed the bus was quite empty for a weekday morning. In fact traffic was almost non-existent. He briefly dwelt on the fact that if he had his car he could’ve really put his foot down for a change.

‘Can I have a single to town centre please?’

‘That’ll be two fifty,’ replied the gruff driver.

Jack already had the correct change rattling around in his pocket and handed the warm coins to him. A ticket immediately sprang from the machine and with a quick rip he took it and headed down the bus with a quick,

‘Thank you.’

The doors slammed shut as he took his seat close to the rear of the single decker. Jack was a people watcher and secretly enjoyed the occasional foray onto public transport to fulfil his pastime.

He surveyed his fellow passengers. The woman whom he had acknowledged at the bus stop had taken a seat at the front next to a small old lady with tightly permed white hair. A couple of seats behind them sat a young man who looked like he was on his way to a job interview with ill-fitting cheap suit that he really didn’t look comfortable in. He also had the obligatory mobile phone attached to his head by long strands, presumably listening to the latest garage music sensation.

On the opposite side of the bus two college girls were discussing a party they had attended with giggles and mock surprise. A few rows back from the front sat an unkempt man who just looked plain ill. He was barely awake and rocked in time with the motion of the bus. At the very front sat two old women holding shopping trolleys out in front of them chatting quietly, most likely off into town on a shopping trip or an innocent gamble at the bingo hall.

Now he had taken in the people he was travelling with he turned his gaze to the countryside passing by the window outside. It was like a Sunday. He thought that maybe the flu epidemic the news programs were rambling on about was far worse than they were reporting. He scoffed at the idea, mainly as the reporters generally played up disaster rather than play it down. Panic had been caused by far less in recent years. The newscasters only had to intimate about some shortage or other and the shelves or fuel pumps would be dry by the end of that day.