The jasmine plant

Of all the strange impulse purchases, a jasmine plant! They were ill equipped to wrap it in the shop – a brown paper bag and some wrapping looped over the top and stapled to the bag was the best that they could do.

I managed to get the seat on the bus by the gantry area for wheelchairs and luggage or for just packing more people in.

The heady scent of jasmine filled the lower deck.

My plant was in constant peril as people crushed in. At times I sat with one arm high around the plant, the other on the bar in front of my seat. A schoolboy with a packed rucksack swung around towards me, but my defensive position allowed me to swat him away.

An elderly woman with dyed red-brown hair scraped back into a pony tale kept looking around, nose in the air, sniffing. Then I overheard her asking someone where we were. I was disappointed that she was sniffing for traces of our location rather than for the origin of the sensual scent emanating from my plant. I was ready to discuss my plant with her.

Even the woman I was sat next to showed no interest in my plant. Every five minutes or so she would flick her ‘phone open and listen into it, waiting for a message than never came.

I watched a feathery collection of spores (dandelion?) float over my left shoulder from behind me and swim in the stale-breathy currents around near where I sat. My hands being occupied, I was helpless; all I could do was to try and blow the spores away. They caught a drift towards a woman standing by the door and settled on the dark blue of her coat. They soon took flight again, gliding back towards the plant, before changing their mind and coming to a rest on the other sleeve of the blue coat.

Back home, I picked away at the staples and peeled off the wrapping, before leaning over and bringing the plant out of the brown paper bag. I placed it in a sheltered spot and took a deep breath of its dizzying, intoxicating perfume, drawing the scented air down through my lungs, into my midriff, and then down into my feet, into the very earth beneath me.

Delicate Jasmine petals
On a crowded bus
My arm protects you