The small things

It was a hot day. The bus was late. It was supposed to arrive at 9.57am, and I began to suspect the driver had paused to let the passengers enjoy the view from the cliffs. Or else it wasn't going to arrive at all, suspiciously cancelled!

The only other person at the bus stop was a very overweight teenager, eating a chocolate bar. On the bright side, she did store the empty wrapper in her pocket with, sadly, what looked like another delicious treat awaiting its fate. I absentmindedly wondered, if she was to lose a lot of weight, would the tattoos on her legs and arms compress. It was a genuine scientific question. You’ll be glad to know I kept it inside my head. 

I asked the girl if she thought the bus was going to come. It had by then missed the ferry it was meant to be on, taking passengers across the Tamar to Plymouth. The girl smiled. She had a lovely friendly nature.  She didn't seem to class me among the ancients, not even for a split second. She was calm and cheerful, and somehow made me think we could cope whether our expected transport came, or not.

The bus did eventually turn up. One of the passengers said the driver had taken a wrong turn and driven to another village not on his scheduled route. That’s why they were late. People round here are very stoic and forgiving.

And so today became a day of small things which were really big things at heart. The best one was renewing acquaintance with someone who happened to be a passenger on the bus, the cook from the school I worked at for many years. It was because of the missed ferry really, because the driver had to park in the ferry lanes to wait for the next crossing. I was in full sun and looked round to see if there was a seat in the shade. And there she was, Ruth, and so I moved over next to her. ‘I didn’t know if it was you,’ she said, ‘with the sunglasses and the hat. I didn’t like to ask. I’ve done that kind of thing before, and been wrong.’

We had a lovely chat. She was meeting another of our old team at school — Olive, the caretaker, Olive who loved the children and made us all laugh — and would I like to join them for coffee? I immediately changed all my plans, and said that would be great. When we arrived at the meeting place, another of our ex-colleagues, the teacher of the ‘top class’, seemed to materialise out of the crowd. She had spotted us all nattering, and come over to join us! I hadn’t seen her for years either.

I don’t know how God engineers these things, but he has a knack.

As I looked back over the day, I recognised many small ways in which someone had made a difference to me, and perhaps, I hoped, I may have made a difference to them. I came to the conclusion that small moments may be big moments, and often, small things are big things. They help us to connect with nature, with other people, with God. And so we learn more about empathy, and then as writers we help our readers to empathise with our characters, or with the worlds we create. 

Photos are the writer's own.

Veronica Bright is a prize-winning author of short fiction and drama. She writes occasional book reviews for Transforming Ministry. She is the ACW short story adviser, and runs the ACW Writing for Children group, whose members meet up on Zoom. For more details look on the Writing for Children Facebook page.