Extract from New Kindle Book

Alluring Lists & The Bus Watcher

Thanks for stoppying by to read a couple of extracts from my latest Kindle book. Alluring Lists & The Bus Watcher is just over 5000 words long so would be classed as a long short story.

Here's the blurb about it: A young girl’s life takes a downturn when she misses the bus to work one day. Afraid of getting into trouble with her employer, she picks up a bus timetable little knowing these will soon rule her life. Over the space of three years, her life spirals downwards into a cycle of lists, hoarding and obsessions. An intriguing short story that looks at OCD and how untreated obsessions and compulsions can destroy a life.

Extracts
There was a bus stop directly outside my cottage that serviced several routes, its shelter a gaunt skeleton of metal ribs and frosted glass. It was there that my love affair with buses started. The first weekend after Mrs Cooper’s rebuke, I jiggled Dad’s old recliner into position by the front window and for an hour sat watching the buses. I could see through the frilly white veil but no one could see in and I enjoyed being a secret observer; a mouse peeping from her hidey-hole.


The next weekend, I took my research a step further and started riding the buses. Timetable in hand and metro card in the other, I boarded the buses outside my home and rode the complete circuit. I carried notebook and pencil and scribbled notes to myself, working out which buses I could catch to work, noting where they stopped and how often, always following the route on the timetable. I needed to leave home between 7 and 7:15am and I had a choice of three buses during that time. Any one of them would deposit me within a block of the office.

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By 2011, I was in deeper than I had thought possible. My life revolved around the buses and the view from my front window. I was compelled to record every movement, every minute detail. If I cooked, it was a matter of tossing a pie in the microwave. More often, I had takeout delivered to my door. I couldn’t leave my spot by the window for longer than a few minutes. The lists grew in number and size and I started boxing the old ones, stuffing pages in haphazardly and tossing them into my bedroom and the passage way. I still couldn’t part with them. They were vitally important to my well-being; hoards of information that was the focus of my life.

The buses stopped their circuits at midnight and that was when I would do my shopping. Squeaking down Bailey Street on my bicycle. Pedalling from one street lamp to the next, their cinnamon cones of light illuminating my way, never allowing darkness to shroud me. At the second corner, I would turn left by the broad oak and then right into the car park. The twenty-four hour sign flickered incessantly, reminding people they could shop anytime; luring in weary travellers and thirsty party goers. My basket contained only bread, milk and microwave meals. I would be home by 1am and if I had the energy, would put on a load of washing before collapsing into bed. It was easy to toss it in the drier when the alarm called me to rise.


Alluring Lists & The Bus Watcher is available through Amazon.com for ony 99 cents.