Fading

Splat! This humongous globule of spit landed on the hot grey tarred road under my bus window. I felt my facial muscles contract as microscopic drops sprayed my face through the window but I was forewarned about this sputum mixed with streaks of yellow green mucus. I had heard the scraping and coughing from afar wondering what being could be making that god-awful noise but I still turned my face, craned my neck towards the retching and I watched in disgust as it was sucked and racked through that scrawny neck, I watched as it landed noisily on the road.

This sputum seemed at home on the dusty road in the midst of nylon wrappers, torn BRT tickets, sucked dry oranges, and egg shells. All discarded like this sputum that had tried to cling but its haggard owner had walked away from. He had brushed the slimy dribble, the remnant of the sputum off his cracked lips before it dropped on to his grey beard, and then wiped the back of his hand on his dirty shirt.

I saw slippers, boots, shoes come into my line of sight. They walked by it, stomped through it, tiptoed round it or simply stepped over it. I watched as it stuck to the soles of shoes, that sputum. They took and took of it until it disappeared from sight.