I was on the A24 bus traveling to my usual destination and then life changed.
Life did a leap about in another direction because of the girl sitting at the front of the bus.
The girl with the magnificent red hair with an absorbency of rich clarity declaring war against cardboard greys, road worn blues and bleached passing parades.

First I must elaborate a little about my weeks prior this bus ride where I began to notice a few people around me with red hair, well mostly females to be exact.
I nearly went up to one young female to tell her that I thought her hair colour was a gift from the Gods.
However I refrained, my truth is I didn’t want her to think I was a crazy person.
I’m not crazy, I’m so very normal that it bores me sometimes to look in the mirror, I just have a little exaggeration hiccup … only sometimes.

My bus red was in my estimations the culmination of all my sightings of redheads.
Her hair was a glossy red rejoicing waterfall down her back.
I wondered if it was the product of genetic inheritance or one of those packet jobs with plastic gloves enclosed and bold font bleats of stunning results.
I did not care, bottle or real it was sensationally red.
No it was more than mere sensational …. her hair was in my imagination the exact colour of a thousand blushing angels.
An embarrassed angel, I bit my lip for the pure divine folly of my comparison.
From that moment I spied her I was beyond the pearly gates in love with this girl’s hair, the girl with the beautiful red hair.

Her hair told me she was a good person.
Ridiculous to presume that a person is good based on their hair but it was true, I know it was the truth for my higher instincts spoke this to me.
If it had been my regular every day instincts I’d have laughed and taken her off my admiration pedestal.

The sunlight filtering through the bus window spoke to me in a cosmic visual dialogue about the virtues of her hair.
It was clear to me that this girl was kind and understood life more than the average girl or commuter traveling home on a Friday arvo.

The bus ambled along collecting more passengers.
As the bus filled the passengers bobbed along to the tempo of the road , their bodies swaying giving me flick glimpses of her perfection.
I knew I was going to get off the same stop as her, I was derelict in common sense.
Following her on foot I was glad to spy that slight lean forward turn of her body telling that she intended to take the stairs down to the train station.
But mercy me before she dipped out of sight what was left of the disappearing sun caught her hair and flamed it up in the passing breeze bequeathing me a view of fiery hair tassels.

At the train station I pretended that I was simply catching my second commute home, nothing more and certainly not a hair stalker, having no idea where the train was headed was a minor fly to pick out of the ointment.
The train scaled along the track making it’s arrival announcement at the station.
Sitting I remained with no urgency in me waiting for Red to move first.
She sat and watched the train doors open and a few bibs and bobs of people muddled out and left the station.
Not a single traveler boarded the metal carriages.
She and I evolved into a scene of two people alone in a train station listening to the soft rumble of a train take smartly to the distance.

Her hair fell to the side which kept my attention so intently I didn’t realize that she was actually saying something to me.
She spoke to me again but her lips … they did not move they had a nothing expression yet she was speaking.
It wasn’t right, I felt an uneasiness crawl with claws around my back.

I looked for salvation in her red hair for the redemption of my calm but the door was wide open to fear.
Her perfect red hair was like living lava down her back, a smoky ambiance filled my lungs and I heard her voice say “breathe, remember to breathe”.
The force of sudden fear shut tight my eyes , a guillotine snap of eyelids.

I didn’t want to look at her face with those lips of nothing but the desire to see the rich reward of her red mane pried open my eyes.
Opening my eyes I was taken in by a red hue hanging around my feet, my lungs heaved in a caustic smokey taste that rubbed the air.

" Stay still mate… just breathe into this…"

The fire burned down most of my apartment block.
I was found unconscious in the building stairwell with just a murmur of life still in my body.
Something had pulled or dragged me into where the dangerous smoke wasn’t as thick with its venom.
I knew what it was.
I was following my red haired angel.