Joe's dissatisfaction grumbled continuously like the wheels of his bus as they rumbled up and down the road. He imagined ruts carved in the tarmac.

An elderly woman and two schoolchildren waited at the stop, Joe flicked the indicator and pulled in for the umpteen billionth time. It was all on autopilot now, unless some idiot pulled out unexpectedly, or a woman in shorts and boob-tube, alerted his attention. Another stop, a tall man with brief case got off without a word, and then a young girl and boy called:

"Thanks".

"Yeah, bye" Joe replied mechanically, wondering if they were going together. Cloudy images of his courting days; him and Susan hand in hand, drifted through his awareness like snow flakes. Then the lights changed.

Bus driving had been a stop-gap measure, just until he could find something better. That was twelve years ago, nothing better turned up and Joe was resigned to carving ruts in the routes he travelled day in, day out. Going nowhere, he watched and helped others to travel. His smile derived increasingly from convention rather than from fact. He had even stopped dreaming about the plant nursery business, although he still entertained a surge of enthusiasm for the idea from time to time; it was more of an 'if only' than a potentiality. Susan had talked him out of it years ago, and it was true; it would have been a gamble.

His reliable, steady income had bought the new kitchen, conservatory and various 'mind expanding' foreign holidays. To Joe's mind, however, one hotel complex was much like another regardless of its geographic situation. But Susan's mind was certainly expanded, more so now that the boys had flown; Kevin to Aberdeen, and Justin even further a field to Montreal. Joe missed and secretly envied them.

Of course Susan was right and now that she was working full time they could afford two holidays a year. Not to mention salsa dancing classes, spray booth tanning sessions, and aroma-soma-primal-singing-dancing-whatever the current therapy was. Joe's unexpanded mind didn't grasp it all but he was sure Susan was right, didn't she just look and feel like a million dollars? Yes and it nearly cost that much! Yet Joe was content with his beautiful wife and his beautiful home and garden full of rare and lovingly tended plants. Yes, he was happy wasn't he? He loved Susan dearly, didn't he? With a home and wife to be proud of, what more could a man ask?

Joe pulled into the bus station, pulled out his paper, flask and sandwiches and settled down in his cab for a leisurely ten minute lunch break. Then he opened the doors to the queuing passengers. A woman about Susan's age boarded, wearing a flouncy white skirt, knickers pink vest, a white jacket and she carried a matching pink bag. She wasn't as shiny and tanned as Susan, and anyway Susan would never travel by bus, she had got her licence years ago.

"Do you go to Keighley station?" asked the woman proffering a ticket. When Joe answered that he did, but that she could not use that ticket; owing to it being issued by a different bus company. She looked at him in disbelief and deep disappointment.

"Oh! For God's sake!" she pronounced petulantly.

 Joe watched dispassionately as she strutted away. 'She looks like a bag of bloody marshmallows' he thought and smiling at his private joke he manoeuvred out of the station. But his lunch lay heavy on his stomach.

'Only three more 'there and backs' to go 'til home time' he thought. He hated the way he always had to count the journeys, but he couldn't stop it. Same with the bus stops; he counted all the stops both ways and sub-counted the ones that he actually stopped at. He even calculated the average number of times he stopped at different times of day. It drove him mad but it was beyond his control.

Arriving home at last, Joe was greeted as always by Scruff's doggy delirium. Only when he noticed the pink envelope propped against the mantle clock did he become aware of the hollow house filled only with the clock's ticking. He had always hated that clock, Susan's choice as with everything, except the garden.

After reading the letter, Joe stared sightlessly out of the brilliant, blue, clematis framed window, the glorious garden beyond was bathed in evening sunlight.

She had gone.

She was not coming back.

Ever.

She had found a better life. Joe's life was crashing around him like a neatly demolished, high rise building.

He took a bottle of whisky upstairs to the bedroom. Wardrobe doors hung open exposing empty coat hangers. Scruff followed feeling strangely subdued and not knowing why. Joe sat on the bed and slowly poured a whisky, and another, and another, while silent tears dropped from his chin. Scruff sniffed at them and licked Joe's hand. Just before the bottle was finished, Joe crashed, still dressed, on the bed with Scruff at his feet.

He woke at seven, his head banging, but Scruffs need for a pee drove the two of them out of the door and down the lane. Joe's life was in ruins, his head was killing him but he kept on walking automatically. The sun was shining warm and wholesome on dew-green grass, honeysuckle perfume filled the air but Joe was oblivious.

Rose caught sight of Joe, or more precisely, of Scruff in the distance. She was anxious about nearing the little dog having had several run-ins with dogs during her early morning walks. She presumed that dogs were inclined to protecting their masters and that was why they were prone to reacting threateningly towards dog-less humans.

A less intimidating personage than Rose could not be imagined. She was slight and straight with greying hair sparkling silver in the morning sun, which flashed off her glasses in rhythm with her sprightly walk.

'It's a Jack Russell!' thought Rose with mounting concern. She decided to employ her usual technique of projecting harmlessness to snarling, scurrying, and vicious little potential attackers. As Joe and Scruff neared, she summoned, from the depths of her uncommonly expansive well of human warmth, her widest smile which she directed towards Joe as she cheerily declared:

"Good morning!"

Scruff paid Rose no mind at all since his master's incomprehensible, but strangely ominous demeanour was vexing him almost unbearably. Even when the woman spoke Scruff was not deflected from his focus, he was waiting for a sign that all was well.  But Joe just raised his eyes in Rose's direction; he did not register any perception apart from a habitual response to a common greeting.

Yet within that ordinary remark was extraordinary energy; uncompromising, undemanding, warm, sincerity piercing his blank grief. Like the sun's warmth soaking through the yoke of yesterday's work shirt, Rose's simple goodwill message penetrated Joe's dark cloud. Honeysuckle, birdsong and glistening grass conspired with Rose to fill his reconstituted senses. And he agreed:

"Good morning!"

Rose, still smiling, passed by, pleased with another close encounter braved and safely dispatched.

Joe turned to the dog;

"Come on Scruff" a smile slowly creasing his stubble as he observed:

"We're free lad at last! We're free!" He began to whistle as his head and heart began to clear.

Scruff wagged and danced himself into an ecstasy of unbridled joy.