A regular morning sight on my journey to work is a couple so contrasting that they are the embodiment of true opposites.
What strikes me first is their expressions. Both are stern as if in parallel queues to the Dentist prior to invasive root canal work. There is proximity between them when they are sitting down, but no tender touches. They stare ahead of themselves, exchanging occasional whispered comments which I strain to hear as I sit behind them on the bus. One whisper, then another. I try to see how their faces are reacting but can see no flicker of change. This could be because they have clocked that there is a creepy bloke sitting behind them with an unhealthy interest in them so have gone into defensive mode in the same way that a lizard does when it knows that it has been spotted by a predator.
There is a contrast in size between the two - the woman larger in frame. The man, slight and more aerodynamic should he be fired from a cannon.
I try to imagine them together and inescapeably find them in a 1940s black and white film where love is suggested, where exchanges are clipped but all of the funny business goes on behind closed doors under voluminous blankets.
They try to walk together, but the man surges ahead of the woman who is bringing up the rear despite the fact that she wears pumps and he shiney black businessman's shoes, designed for style not speed.
I accept I have no right to say any of these things. I am just inquisitive and have a burning desire to write a radio play about such a couple. It would have murder, sex and surprise in it. The murder bit would be as expected, as he is only slight and smaller than me and would fit easily into the open manhole I had steered him into, cunningly camouflaged with tarmac coloured cling film knowing that he would reach it first rather than his girlfriend such is their propensity to to walk apart, his smaller calibre and the assurance that if the girlfriend got their first, she would get stuck in it. The sex would be also be as expected after I had helped the girlfried to handle the loss of the stunted one and would be the culmination of a long period of emotional support. And the surprise would be when she finds the tarmac textured clingfilm in my bottom draw, realises what I have done, suffocates me with it before making a fortune from realising that it is a cost effective way of disguising potholes, thus saving Governments millions from only having to ever do half a repair job in this age of austerity.
I would be typecast in such a role having the perfect body for radio and an ability to breath huskily to swoon the ladies, a skill developed from 20 years of asthma and a childhood on the fags.
I still have much work to do, but my material is all around. The other day, I storyboarded an epic tale of deceit, murder, sex and surprise all from listening to two veterinary nurses recounting their experiences of a labrador being castrated.
God, I love this town.