Bus stop writing prompt by Funke

I am on my haunches, still.
 

I wish I hadn’t picked my friend’s call.
 

I wouldn’t have heard his voice whispering though my ear piece. 
 

The air around me has ceased to move. I throw off my jacket – It is hot.
 

“Where are you” he asked me?
 

“Ladipo bus stop” I replied.
 

You are two bus stops from the spot where it happened, it was ghastly…

 

My phone rolls out of my hand.

 
I take in deep breaths into my tight chest, my eyes glaze – the world around me floats in
 

tears – watering down the colours – the blue sky turns grey, the clay ground a dull splotchy red,

the sun hides behind clouds.

I scream out aloud, holding my hands over my ears.

A circle of people close round me. Looking…

My hand trembles as I point to a man, “Why are people walking on their heads, I ask an old woman beside me.

The crowd moves back, shaking their heads – “the madness just start o,” one voice exclaims. “Ah! Na fine man o” another says.

 

Mad! Yes, I am mad. Mad with a madness no parent prays for.

 

“Pull yourself together!” my friend had told me. “You are a man”.

 

A man? Is it the thing I have in between my legs that makes me immune to pain, grief – the fire engulfing my heart, spreading through my body?

 

I take in a deep breath and look around me again; Vehicles and people rush past me – In shades of black, white and grey.

 

The only colours I see are on children, children of his age, children alive and well.

 

I pick myself off the ground, the crowd parts for me. I keep on walking to the bus stop where it all happened.