On my way to the fishmonger before crossing the road, I watched this lady equalising the straps of her backpack as she waited for the bus. At first I thought she was untangling the straps.
This woman at the bus stop reminded me of what my mother, in her later years, used to utter half jokingly to me whenever she got over a spell of illness, "We are all waiting on the bus stop. This time the bus was full." I would smile but it really made me sad at the time.
There is a poem entitled "Jekk" (if) printed on the glass of the bus shelter. It was written by one of the best Maltese intellectuals Prof. Oliver Friggieri who passed away in 2020. The first stanza reads:
If...
If you understand what the stars say
to the moon during the night ',
if you know where the clouds came from
where they are going, where,
