Text: Cristian Alzati, Illustrations: Ayuko Tanaka

‘Sebas! Sebito, Sebasquiú!'

Uh uh. The unmistakable voice of my grandma, out of somewhere round the back row, crying my poor name out and very loud. She must've seen me dashing to catch the bus. As the two door blades closed behind me with a 'swoosh’, I knew it was too late to even think of an escape.

I had taken the 468 to South Croydon at Elephant and Castle from my office at the Technopark. Since it was the rush hour it was either that or the 363 to Crystal Palace, followed by a change to the 157 to Morden and getting off at Withehorse Road. I knew the next one will be a good 30 or 40 minutes later, if lucky. As it stood, I was already too late to catch the 19:30 webinar on Dependency Injection techniques that I had hoped to do from home.

‘How’s that coding of yours, dear?’ The high-pitched voice rose again unrestrained from the rear. There was no way to her silence, or at least to the gentler side of her decibels, but to get next to her asap, wherever that was. But, oh the misery of it, the bus was packed. Fumble, fumble all my way along the narrow corridor. Sandwiched by the promiscuous cuddle of human-shaped entropy, knocking my Covid mask off, impeding my progress. Diversity itself on a red double-decker along the crooked streets of Southwark.

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‘Found any bugs recently?’ Her voice had risen again from the distant rear, like the fearless cry of an American tourist ringing her next stop to the four winds. As I kept elbowing my penurious way to her, the onslaught had remained unrelenting. No truce extended and no chance of my replying back from the distance left between us. Hold your thrust grannie; half a dozen more rows and I’m there.

When I finally reached the rearmost row, her sweet, smiling face behind the Covid mask was a vast greeting full moon under a giant first-aid patch. The deep canyons and rugged cliffs of her lunar surface should have awoken my reverence, but all I could think was how those cupcakes and afternoon tea were keeping her in such a good shape. Up to this moment I was sure I had been determined to show some indignation, a look of exasperation, an admonishing finger, or at least a finger to my lips. To no avail; the smile of her eyes was so deviously undiluted, so disarmingly wide, all I could do was to return it augmented.

‘Hullo granny.’ I heard myself saying, timidly.

Riding on her left side, a broader moon of a middle-aged lady and her two Tesco shopping bags by her feet, filled to their brim, looked back at me with some restrained dislike. By her right flank, next to the side window panel, my gaze was met by the total indifference of a pomaded old chap occupying himself with a game of sudoku. Every now and then he will lower his mask to dart his tongue out from under a wax-sculpted moustache and meet the blunt tip of the tiny pencil he was scribbling his figures with.

Instinctively, I made as if to kiss her. ‘Don’t even think about it, love. It’s not regulation these days.' She said. 'Better wait till I get my booster shot.' Her Covid mask was halfway down and her ball-shaped nose was poking out of the top like a wooden peg in a hat stand. She wore a white knitted cap that covered most of her hair but left enough room to highlight her white bushy eyebrows and the deep wrinkles of her forehead. The ensemble made her look mysteriously old. Old as an old white owl. Old as an ancient vestal oracle. And yet, moon-face, peg-nose and all, I still thought her cute. 'This is my dearest Sebastian, dear.’ She said to the broader moon next to her as a way of introduction. ‘He is into computers.’

'And what exactly is it that you do, love?' The middle-aged lady asked as if she knew how much the time-honoured question bothered me, and I wanted to say I'm into computers, aren't I?

'He's the cleverest little coder there is, love.' Grannie spares me the trouble. Ever since I began my professional career, no matter how much effort, smarts, or acumen I manage to stuff into my answer, my questioner will be either left with a blank look of incomprehension or, as in the best of cases, with a polite "I see" in return, meaning to say, of course, how much it is they fail to see. And so, to dispense with the unnecessary aggravation, as a matter of policy I have resolved to say I indeed am into computers. It's as simple as to say I'm into vacuum cleaners, which usually means to say I sell them, but leaves enough room to imply I either sell them, repair them, or, as the actual case happens to be, I program them to perform wondrous things when the time is right. But that is already getting into unnecessary complexities. 'Yet, he is currently stuck with a nasty synchro bug. Aren't we dear?'

(To be continued in 2/3)