Perhaps talking to all you people is bad for my health.

It just serves as a reminder as to how much I am afraid of public humiliation.

And how much being ignored irks me.

Anyway, I shall write a long overdue story that I was supposed to during the December holidays but I forgot.

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He sat at the bus stop. Yes, it was a bus-stop, because you know thats where life's most exciting stories happen. At bus stops or on buses anyway.

But it didn't seem like anything interesting was going to happen, at least on that day. But you know him, always looking for adventure, always looking for excitement and always ready to look at the random cloud in the sky and that random -

"Bard!"

He blinked, startled out of his daydreams and looked for the source of the noise. The utterance had come from a certain old chinese dude. You know, the type of old chinese dude you see all the time in this sunny sunny little island.

He was wearing a striped shirt, with greying hair, horizontal stripes if you must know. He was kinda plumpish, and had shorts and slippers. Like I said, that type of old chinese dude. Lets call him OCD from now shall we?

Naturally he assumed that the OCD was referring to a bird. You know the type of English that goes around here, and especially since the OCD was an OCD it was only natural to assume.

Well, he squinted across the large road and didn't see anything. The bus stop was right beside a nature reserve, so he didn't suppose it was too ridiculous for someone to be looking for a bird. In any case, he didn't see anything and he went back into his idyllic thoughts. Oh the wonder of the holidays, the wonder of the lack of school, the wonder of

"BARD!"

He squinted very very hard this time, but there clearly was no bird. He glanced at the OCD, he was smiling creepily in his direction. "Bard." he said again, nodding slowly and pointing across the road to where there was clearly no bird of the sort.

There clearly wasn't a bard around either.

But being the kind polite teenager that he was, he smiled back and nodded, and tried not the let the worried expression show on his face. Really, he was shaking inside, that OCD was obviously a madman, he wondered what he would do.

It was fine, he told himself, the OCD would move on to another target.

The OCD cried "bard" again and tried to gather the attention of another stone faced person at the bus-stop, who wisely chose to ignore the OCD and pretend he had never heard him. The OCD moved on as our dear neurotic hero swore under his breath. He had clearly made a mistake that the other people in the bus stop had profited on. The OCD would soon go back to him.

Just then our dear teenaged friend decided that this person was not just an old chinese dude. He was clearly a deranged absolutely mad num-nut.

Yeap, he was a DAMN.

Anyway, after the DAMN had finished with everyone else in the bus-stop. He attacked our friend again with his rousing cry of bard. He stared blankly ahead but the DAMN did not give up, he was clearly encouraged by his earlier smile. This was turning into a very discomforting situation.

Just then, his bus came. He rushed onto the bus and got on quickly and breathed a great sigh of relief. He settled into his seat, by himself in case you were wondering, on the left hand side of the bus as usual, and was just about to enjoy the scenery when

"BARD"

oh dear. This was turning out to be a bad day for him indeed. For seated right at the front of the bus was the DAMN. He sat still as a stone, and dared not move throughout the entire ride. For at least the horrible demented entity was unaware of his presence.

He trembled at the thought that he would be discovered. He was shaken. Really, mad people scared him, as did obnoxious people. When the two were combined into one, it scared him out of his wits.

Then the unthinkable began to happen. His nose, bane of his existence decided at that moment that it would be fitting to rouse itself to a sneeze. Yes, it was a rousing, since his nose absolved itself of its other duties, like breathing. He did it with his mouth, in case that wasn't too obvious.

He clamped his hand over his mouth but it was too late. He had unleashed a monster of a sneeze and the DAMN had noticed.

The DAMN gave him a toothy grin and as if sensing his fear, and egged on by the empty seat next to him, he began to make as if he was going to come sit next to him.

Our friend's mind went into immediate panic mode. To the front, there was the madman. He was already at the back of the bus. And to the left would be out of the window. There was logically only one place left to go.

In a neurotic frenzy he hopped across the isle into the vacant yet "not free" seat next to the excessively pretty 20 something year old who sat there.

" I hope you don't mind mademoiselle, but this concerns the safety of us all, I fear the madman is coming and will slay us all with his incessant cries of a ghostly bird."

The lady was notably outraged but assuaged by the one word of french that he knew, and also because she looked up saw the DAMN approaching to her utmost horror, she allowed this notably flustered and sneezing teenager to take the seat of dignity beside her.

The DAMN paused as if to think, the cogs turning in its lunatic mind, the situation had changed, it would do him no good to assault the child in its new position. Cries of molestation would not be easy to bat away. The logic having made some sense in its limbering mind, it gave out the cry of "BARD" once more and went away.

Breathing a sigh of relief, he finally settled into his seat, and looking to the right and out of the window he thought to himself, ooh what a seat, and what a view.