out and about

The bus stops. The emergency exit hatch is a shadow-play of leaves.

The steep decline of Parriwi Road is filled with pedestrians tumbling down towards the Spit.

A girl boards the bus with black hair in a topknot, a yellow-ochre t-shirt and blue shorts. Her backpack hangs in front, and a cat tag hangs from that.

Two women on bikes wait to cross the road. Their heads are turned to each other, and each has an opposite foot down on the path. One uses complicated hand twists to illustrate her words and the other nods.

A man in pink shorts walks on the far side of the road. I can’t be sure if he’s wearing a t-shirt that looks like tattoos, or tattoos that look like a t-shirt.

The dormant single-deckers form a glacier at Brookvale Depot, their white roofs and lumpy air-conditioners sparkling in the sun.

An old man, big and shaggy, dressed in a grey t-shirt and black trousers, shuffles down a long, steep driveway. Step by step, tap by tap, one foot in front of the other, but only just.

A balcony lies discarded on a footpath in Mosman, brown-framed with rich yellow uprights.

Four blonde women are milling on the platform, wheelie-suitcases in hand and Ed Sheeran’s tour locations on their backs.

On Platform 5 at Wynyard, a smallish girl jumps and jumps. Hair up, white sleeveless dress with a heart on the front and frills, pink hat with red stripes, blue socks with white rabbits, and shoes of faded apricot. She palms both cheeks and drags them down in epic distortion, then releases with a grin. Her eyes are bright.

A red kayak glides on morning-blue water at the Spit.

A woman walks into the lane, wearing a long apron and carrying a tray. She turns aside, climbing the stairs to a back door.

A girl at the bus stop wears a floppy hat, long dress, black and white sandals. She sits with her mum and clutches a big, thick book called ‘Warrior Cats’.

A sausage dog trots across the road with its human. The man bends to bestow a treat, and the little dog grins up at him. Good boy!

Approaching the bus stop, a plump woman sucks her finger.

A small girl, in a pink towel poncho with hood, has long, bold, leopard-printed sleeves.

A woman addresses two little girls in the play area, eye to eye with them as they stand recruit-like on the bench. She points at one and then the other. They stand very still.

A young woman has coffee with her mother. The young woman’s black t-shirt says ‘Auckland Brisbane Sydney Adelaide Melbourne Perth something something SQL’. Her mother wears a floral blouse.

There’s a man at the cafe who looks like the Antiques Roadshow presenter: moustache, wavy hair, glasses halfway down his nose, and a double chin with bottom jaw hanging as he reads his phone.

A pot of tea sits untouched at his elbow.

He wears blue jeans with polished, black, slip-on shoes, a blue shirt with sleeves rolled to the elbow, and over the shirt a grey vest from a three-piece suit. The vest has a pattern of diamonds on the back, in deep umber, yellow and blue.

His head moves up and down as he reads, to keep his view through the lowered glasses, and when at last he looks up over them he seems surprised, like he’s isn’t where he thought he was.

A very old woman sits alone at a table, mobile phone to her ear. She leans forward, as if to confide something, and asks: “Are you all right?”

A young bloke walks past in a t-shirt and thongs, and baggy pants that seem to have a pattern of beer coasters.

A man sits at a cafe. Dark hair with headphones, olive green t-shirt and shorts. He leans close above a laptop, one hand on a mouse and the other worrying at his fringe, rubbing his forehead, supporting his head. Finger on brow. Thumb on temple. Squeezing.

A man in the supermarket pushes his very little son in a trolley. ‘Who’s a bigger piggy?’ he says. ‘You or Stephen?’

The very little son, in a very little voice, says: ‘Me.’

The very skinny cleaner in a loose shirt and hijab has a bolt-hole beside the recycle and waste bins, where she can stand and stare into space or keep an eye out for supervisors.

Big noise in the cafe. The cleaner looks round with a flash of glasses.

Oh. She’s disappeared.

As we approach Central, a child’s voice fills the carriage: Big building! A udder udder one!