We have just gotten off the island. It is bright and sunny. The car ferry docks at Yung Shue Wan pier and our bus drives off the ferry and pulls into the bus station. We still have to switch buses.
The four of us are trying to get out but we are at the back, and there are more people doing the same. And when it is our turn, others are already getting on.
Liam, Lizzie, Siobhan finally leave when I see a shopping bag left behind. I pick the bag up but a black woman says to me, No, that is mine!
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Oh, Ok, I reply, as she sits down on the brown bench, where we had been. She has two small boys with her.
Then I notice two Asterix books also left on the bench. Must be Lizzie and Liam’s. I quickly pick them up and exit the bus. We need to the catch the next bus.
I turn the books over. The fronts are purple and have the Star Trek logo.
Oh, no. They must belong to the boys on the bus. But the bus is already gone.
I go up to the station forewoman, I know her well, a resolute black woman in her 30s, in a yellow dress.
Can I get these back to the black family that just got on the bus, the woman and the two boys?
Sure give me a minute, she says. She disappears. And I wait.
I am still waiting for her return when I notice a library label ‘UCL’ on the spine of each book. I could return them to UCL.
Another manager walks by me, a younger black woman, but I cannot get her attention. I go into a side room. As I look around I see that it is a satellite library with a few books, for display rather than anything else, with only a couple of books showing the ‘UCL’ label.
I step back out to the bus station. The station forewoman is back. Can I leave these with you to give back? Or I can leave the books in “lost and found”?
I pick up a blue sticky note to write an apology. I am trying to think of the words, but can they fit on the note?
Photo of Causeway Bay bus station via Creative Commons
