Funny, You Think!

That's one wicked sense of

humour; friend texting

"Where are you?!", while

she frantically searches the

school perimeter for the bus

usually parked there, now absent.

That message should have

alerted her to said friend's

involvement in skulduggery

geared to goad her to panic.

A friend previously confided 

in, aware of how traumatic and

isolating she felt about being left

behind, a remnant of a dim memory

of years before when she was

indeed lost as a toddler.  As she

searched the bus interiors for clues

heads slumped out of view.  The

identifying number the driver 

wrote on a taped paper, removed

thoughtfully by this friend.

Grandmother listened and was

deeply empathetic to the

daughter of her daughter, for

some arcane reason inheriting

a neurosis she thought was all

her own, and she recounted the

ways, even now, how nightmares 

haunt her sleeping hours, as she

roams unfamiliar streets, in

vain seeking the comfort

of familiarity and home.