”Final stop: Bertwood”. The chauffeur’s voice was a bit distorted by the old microphone, but you still could hear that the speaker was a woman. A woman in her late forties, most likely a smoker or a drinker and with severe sleep issues. However, the last characteristic was only noticeable with visual aid. Louis sat near the door windows and spent his entire bus ride either enjoying the rural landscape or staring at the chauffeur’s coal-black eye circles. “Give that woman a rest day for the love of God’’ was the first thing he thought when seeing the sleep deprived lady. But once the landscape got dark and gloomy and the chauffeur started giving him the side-eye he decided to revise his resume instead. “Name- check.’’ “Unique qualities – check.’’ “Reason for employment – check’’ The last one was complete bullshit. For what other reason would Louis look for a job except for the money? If he’d have the option, he’d much rather be a billionaire and live in a villa than driving 3 hours to god-knows-where just to work. So he just wrote stuff down like ‘improvement of said characteristics’, ‘broadening of life perceptions’ and ‘teamwork’. Louis wasn’t sure what kind of job he applied to – he saw it was near his grandma’s village and that was the deciding point for him. Plus, his main job was to be an assistant to some self-employed lord, which sounds suspicious if you think about it for a while, but Louis, well, let’s say he’s an impulsive kind of guy so he didn’t think much about it.
The very few grandmothers that still were present, got off the bus and slowly dissolved in different directions.Their shopping carts followed like little dogs behind them, stuttering and jumping up every time there was a height difference between stone tiles. Before getting off himself, Louis went up to ask the chauffeur for directions. “Excuse me, I’m looking for the Pineland Mansion?’’. After a necessary side-eye, the chauffeur said “Sweetie, unless you’re applying for a job, I don’t see a reason why you should head over there.’’ “Well, I am actually applying for a job, so could you tell me the directions?’’. This time, the side-eye turned into a full blown eye-gasp followed by an eye roll. This woman really should consider applying for some eye-acting…