280 Stops

A novella for the Internet about the 11 bus.


- six -

Ms Morwenna Green.

Outward appearance

Morwenna is a feisty looking twenty something with asymmetrical green spiked hair, ribbon tied into a bow in her hair. She looks utterly out of place on this bus with these people; she looks like she's been directly beamed in by aliens from the 1980s. Her fingerless white lace gloves and huge dark glasses seem like an homage to Madonna during her Desperately Seeking Susan period, this is simultaneously true and false. She doesn't realise her oversized striped handbag knocks into Francis Knightlow as she moves through the seats.

Inside Information

Morwenna, Wen to her friends, is heading home. She hates her job in a karaoke bar and her boss insists that each night someone dresses as Madonna from Desperately Seeking Susan, she keeps being told that it's "a special treat for the punters". She snapped at the bus driver for being slow to open the doors of the bus. She's had a difficult shift, she's tired and, God help her, she thinks she saw a cat on the bus. She wonders what Birmingham is coming to.

What are they doing or thinking

Wen just wants to get home; she's been considering quitting her job, dumping her boyfriend or leaving Birmingham altogether, something, anything to kick start her life again. She didn't wait tables during three hard years of study at university to be stuck dressing up as Madonna for drunken stag and hen parties. She distantly recalls feeling fire inside herself on marches and debating feminism with the Women's Association and wonders where that fire went or when she traded that in for cold cash. She'd like that fire back, please and thank you.