Mavis and John Smith's Conversation on a Bus

‘‘So what are you going to do about him Mavis? He’s been dead for a week,’’ said John Smith. ‘‘Oh blimey, has it been a week already? Time flies doesn’t it?’’ Mavis Said. ‘‘Yes it does Mavis, time flies, but I must admit to never having come upon the sight of flying watches and clocks,’’ John Smith admitted.1

‘‘Oh really, I tell you, it’s a wonderful sight, time flying, I believe they do free shows down in Weston Super-mare,’’ explained Mavis with a grand knowledge of all things that fly, including of course watches and clocks. ‘‘Well I should say that sounds grand,’’ said John Smith with tremendous delight, much like that of a child on Christmas morning while opening a present of Bob the Builder on DVD. ‘‘As grand as a grand I do say,’’ said Mavis making reference to the multiple semantic meanings of the word grand in being applicable to someone or something being great or good, and the monetary reward of £1000 cold hard cash. ‘‘Oh that’s very clever of you,’’ said John Smith, once again enlightened by what’s just been mentioned in the narrative explanation. 2

‘‘I do say the views looking good tonight John Smith,’’ Said Mavis analysing the perspective from her eyeball to the outside of the confines of the bus. ‘‘What’d you mean Mavis? You can’t see nowt but the black of the night, oh and that ten tonne weight dropping on someone’s head,’’ John Smith said, clearly pointing out the melancholy surroundings and suggesting at the fact that there is a ten tonne weight dropping on someone’s head outside the bus, an application mostly used in Comedy shows and by Wile E. Coyote. ‘‘I don’t see any ten tonne weight dropping on anybodies head,’’ Mavis proclaimed, pointing out the fact that there was in fact, nothing out there. ‘‘Ha, I was only joking, ha, ha-ha-ha, ha-ha--ha-ha-ha, ha,’’ laughed away John Smith, in a joke only he himself found funny. ‘‘Why did you bother to joke about that?’’ enquired Mavis, with great interest in John Smith’s answer. ‘‘Just making light conversation,’’ replied John Smith, like he was admitting to a teacher as a child that he had just smeared the classroom windows with PVA glue with one of those little white plastic seemingly useless spatula’s. 3

‘‘You’re quite sad aren’t you?’’ pronounced Mavis, in a great superiority over her talking companion. ‘‘No, I’ve just come to realise that life is fundamentally futile, and decided to relegate myself to a slow life of boring chit chat on buses, in which the main topics frequented are usually the state of the British Weather, what it was like when I were a lad and the consistency of Bachelor’s tomato flavoured cuppa soup, you know, the type that features those weird fluffy things hugging people on the advert,’’ announced John Smith, with a great loathing for life, old Hovis adverts and the 52% of the time overcast British weather. ‘‘Ah yes, life is not bliss, on the other hand, I really enjoy those adverts on telly, they give me a warm feeling inside,’’ said Mavis, with a great love for weird furry creatures that fly out of the sky. ‘‘Bloody Hell! I wouldn’t want a bloody furry thing coming down and strangling me!’’ John Smith exclaimed incredibly loudly. ‘‘You know, I see your point on life being futile,’’ Mavis conceded in agreement with John Smith’s prior comments. ‘‘They all do, they all come around to my line of thought in the end,’’ announced John Smith, in an almost darkside-esque mannerism. 4

‘‘Er, excuse me, but did I just hear you right in thinking that you just a minute ago said something about a dead body or something?’’ enquired a concerned member of the public, asking the two about this rather bizarre and odd sounding sentence. ‘‘Oh no, we were just saying that for the sheer fun and hilarity of it. You know like, when someone says something very extreme just so someone else, unconcerned with the conversation at hand, might hear it? Well that’s what we we’re doing, just a bit of playful fun, at the expense of dead bodies locked up by serial killers in their houses,’’ Explained Mavis, talking for both of them.5

‘‘Oh, OK,’’ said the concerned member of the public, thinking them both weird.6

‘‘Few, that was a close one, bloody good cover story there,’’ said John Smith.7