When the Bus Stopped

Chapter 10

Lucy lay on the gigantic bed staring up at the gold-painted ceiling. See, she breathed; this wasn't so bad, this sleeping inside caper. It was almost like staring at the fairy mural on the arched ceiling of her truck... except here there was no half dressed water nymph hiding her modesty behind a well placed rock. Nope. Nothing that exciting. Just a couple of dots of dirt (or were they dead bugs?) framed by endless gold.

Daniello's face flashed before her. Stupid detective! She scrunched her eyes closed and willed herself to sleep, when the strangest noise brought her back to her feet.

"What the hell is that?" Wide eyed she scrimmaged through the room until she found her brick of a phone lit up and shaking like crazy. She pressed a few keys at random, "Hello?" And then pressed a few more, "Hello?" She'd hardly been called by anyone in the last few months that she'd almost forgotten her ringtone.

"Lucinda is that you?"

"Dad? Oh right... I was supposed to call you. What were you trying to tell me about Krishna?"

"Something is very wrong with him, Lucinda." Her father breathed in deeply. "There is something very wrong with your brother..."

Her heart jumped right out of her chest. "What is it?"

"He is back in the country. He just got back from war," he whispered the word in case anyone in the nearby truck could hear him.

"Did he get shot? Is he sick? What has happened, Dad?"

"It is much worse than that. He says he needs a little time to sort out what he is doing with his life - which I was quite happy with as I believe there is nothing wrong with a little morose depression every few years - it is very cleansing, you know?"

"Uhh, I guess some people might find it therapeutic." Although Lucy guessed the majority of those people were high school students who wore black eyeliner and stealthily smoked cigarettes behind the bike shed.

"It is what the flower power era is all about. So I tried to encourage him to delve into it... you know by pulling the curtains closed to block out the daylight. So he could really reflect upon things. And then I put some Cat Stevens on softly in the background. Cat Stevens has got me through so many rough patches Lucinda. Do you remember that time your mother had too many magic mushrooms, and she began tenderizing herself with a hammer, because she thought she was a schnitzel?"

"I was only a baby when that happened."

She had been around to see the after effects of it. Apparently, her mother hadn't been the same since. She was forever standing in the kitchenette of their house truck with an unlit cigarette hanging from her fingers. Her voice never rose above a whisper.

"It was terrible. The doctors told me she would never regain her quality of life. They thought she was going to be brain dead. But Cat Stevens solved everything; his music really perked me up. So I told your brother that. But that conservative twat wouldn't be having any of it. Every time I closed the curtains he would flick them open. And he continually changed the station on the radio ... he was listening to this really loud angry music, the most obscene harmony you would have ever heard! It made Led Zepplin seem like carousel music."

His voice dropped a note, "It really began to make me think about death. Your brother wouldn't listen to my objections. He kept yapping on that this artist was called Taylor Swift (or something like that) and that she sings pop music and is considered a role model to children. I nearly choked! I thought I'd raised him with better ideals than that, Lucinda! Just because people let their kids listen to it doesn't make it right! And when I mentioned that it was possibly called pop music because people popped themselves when they heard it he became so enraged."