Fiction Draft ~ Just One Night - Part 1

8:15pm, Friday

Rose walked with her head held down, watching but not seeing as she crossed each crack in the concrete without stepping on even one. She was lost in her own world of thoughts as she made her way to the bus stop. Rose was twenty-five and had never found it necessary to get a drivers license. She lived and worked in areas where public transport was mostly reliable.

She was happy to be different, in fact she prided herself on those minor differences. While her peers had always dressed in their trendy label clothes, Rose always opted for comfort and her own tastes. When Rose turned seventeen and all her friends had booked their driving tests for their birthdays she had instead simply celebrated. Now as she reached the bus shelter, and read the timetable only to realise she had twenty minutes to wait, she sighed and sat on the dented aluminium seat. While the neighbourhood provided reliable public transport it wasn’t a place that made a young woman traveling alone at night feel safe.

Rose placed her handbag on her lap and opened it to look for her compact, turning sideways on the seat so that the streetlight above shed her some light. She found it at the bottom of the small bag and opened it to look into the small mirror. Having only spent half an hour getting herself ready Rose thought she had done well. Her make-up was flawless, although she still wasn’t sure the toffee lipstick had been the right choice. The time it took to get ready was reduced due to the new haircut she was sporting. Rose had shaved her hair very short, to the amazement of her family and friends and all in the name of charity, just a few weeks ago. She put the compact back in her bag, happy that she looked just as she had when she’d looked in the mirror before leaving home.

Crossing her legs and leaning back Rose again praised herself on her latest clothing purchase. The new charcoal jeans she was wearing were a size twelve and she had been surprised to fit into them. She was also glad that having lost some weight she hadn’t lost any from her chest. The pale pink singlet she had on made the most of her body’s natural curves.

As she sat Rose looked across the street. Watching the car park of the small local shopping centre slowly empty. Next to the centre was a McDonalds which, as is often the case, had become the meeting place for young people before they head out elsewhere. Rose watched as a group of young men walked through the car park, having just left the McDonalds, and made their way to cross the road. She counted six, but there may have been more, the shadows of the trees that lined the footpath made it hard to see clearly. Each of the men she could see, and now hear, as they got closer, seemed to be in their late teens or early twenties. Several of them were wearing white muscle shirts two sizes too small paired with pants two sizes too large. They apparently call that fashion, she thought to herself.

Rose looked up the street hoping the bus would arrive before the young men got much closer, but it wasn’t yet in sight. She was nervous, without really knowing why. Holding her bag just a little closer she reminded herself that not all young men in the area were thugs. All the articles in the local newspaper looking for young perpetrators of muggings, break and enters and an array of other crimes were the exception, not the rule. She felt only slightly more comfortable knowing that she always carried some money and her keys in the pocket of her jeans. If anyone wanted to take her handbag they could have it. This line of thought was not uncommon for Rose, she was at times overly cautious when it came to human nature, some may even call her slightly paranoid.

The group was at the side of the road when Rose looked back, waiting for several cars to leave the car park before they could cross. She could hear fragments of conversation, not enough to know what they were talking about, and occasionally the group would break into laughter. Just a group of friends heading somewhere for a good night, Rose thought to herself, I just hope they don’t need a bus to get there too. As the young men crossed the road Rose saw one of them look towards her and smile. She turned and looked up the street, again hoping to see an approaching bus.

© 2005