Free A Fool's Knot by Philip Spires

would take an army to move her if she refused to budge. “But you can afford to take me. Look at all these other people who are paying you their fares. What does it matter to take one more person?”
    â€œAnd at least sixty of them have the same story as you. You have money,” said the man, pointing at the sack.
    â€œBut I have stood all day to buy this food for my family,” she pleaded. But the tone of her voice said much more than this. She knew that the bus was already overloaded, that the company was rich and could afford to take her for nothing, that the man was asking her family to go without food so that the bus owner could make more profit.
    At this point Janet interrupted. As she saw things, the argument could easily go on forever. He demanded the fare. She was not going to pay and neither was she going to move. And she was too big and heavy to be helped off the bus. So Janet produced a five-shilling note and paid the fare, indicating that the woman could have the twenty cents change. This unfortunately did not help matters. An old man sitting in front, who had just gone through the same routine with the conductor, only to have eventually produced the money for the ticket from a knotted handkerchief inside his shirt, stood up and shouted to announce to the whole bus that this was not fair. If this European woman was so rich, then she should pay for everyone. This fat woman, he said, pointing to the seat behind, should not get special treatment. With the two flat yellow pennies, the change from her fare, nestling in the palm of her hand, the woman also announced her delight to the entire bus and held up the twenty cents as evidence of what had transpired. The woman then turned to the side and thrust the coins into Janet’s hand, indicating that they were a gift that could not be accepted and the general argument began to subside, ignoring the fact that the woman kept hold of the ticket. The conductor moved on to the seat behind to begin a similar process all over again. Janet sighed out of frustration and tried in vain to doze off on her shrinking seat.
    And so it was with great relief that she finally made her way off the bus in Migwani, negotiating her way down the central aisle, stepping over buckets and sacks of maize, stooping to avoid bundles of sugar cane propped against the overflowing luggage rack, pausing on the way to avoid stepping on a trussed chicken or a goat’s leg. With a perfunctory wave to the window where Joseph’s mother now sat to continue her journey, she set off despondently towards the mission to tell Father Michael the details of her fruitless journey. As she passed in front of the south-facing bus, her clothes wet and her face dripping with sweat, she had to step aside as two of the luggage men violently pulled to one side the wiry frame of Munyasya, who had lain down beneath the wheels. He protested, shouting at them in his strange spitting voice. But he could move only slowly, so once he was clear of the bus, the men knew it would take him a minute or more to get to his feet.
    As she crossed the road, the bus set off and by the time it had travelled the thirty yards to be level with her, it was already trailing a high swirling cloud of dust, which added a light ochre coating to her entire frame. And then, for good measure, the driver clanked at the gears and revved the engine in neutral, producing a puff of black fumes to add flavour to the cocktail. The mission was empty when she arrived, but thankfully the door was unlocked, so she went inside to find an easy chair and within a minute, she was asleep.
    She awoke with a start when Mutua dropped a knife on the floor. Michael was sitting opposite her reading Time magazine. He looked up and said, “So you’ve returned to the land of the living. You must have been whacked.”
    â€œWhat time is it?” she asked drowsily.
    â€œEight,” he replied, anticipating her surprise.
    â€œWhat?