A regular on the 38 bus service, a 15 year old steps on board. ‘Pound please’, she says casually to the driver as she drops a pound into the coin slot in front of him. She proceeds to climb the stairs to the top deck before taking her usual seat towards the back.

A young man ambles up the same stairs and to the middle of the top deck, where he slouches on his seat. He must be in his early or mid twenties, though his youth is hidden by the grey cast on his skin caused by the withering of his face by cigarettes, drugs and alcohol that he has probably been consuming since a too young age. After this journey he will walk briskly home in his matching grey tracksuit and worn out black nike trainers that look ready to forfeit at any moment. Accompanying his brisk pace will be his hands in tight fists switching back and forth nervously from his pockets to his shaved head. His final destination is one of the many neglected high-rise blocks of flats Glasgow so shamefully hosts. The flat where his family are forced to reside. But while he is understandably unsatisfied with his living conditions he is admirably happy, this is what he knows, what he is used to, home, Glasgow.

He watches as a woman tiptoes along the aisle, climbing gently with a nervous giggle over his rucksack that lies limp crossing into the aisle. She perches upright in a clean red coat with short blonde hair, probably dyed and well kept, though coarse, most likely with age. Her clearly expensive black leather bag sits neatly beside her, her with her wrist cautiously though casually rested through the handles, obvious that she is slightly paranoid while she is hesitant to draw attention to it. She answers her phone with an obviously watered down well-spoken Scottish accent and learned vocabulary with a put-on Glaswegian dialect. She’s well off, definitely comfortable with money, working a nine to five job as an accountant. By taking the bus she can feel humble, as though she is just a regular person, one with the less well-off people for whom the bus has unofficially become the typical form of transport for those with a lower income. Even though she knows plain well that in one aspect of life she is above the rest. She survives in the top.

She grins at the parents of two children who run relentlessly up and down the aisle, occasionally knocking into her. Their father, in his mid-30s sits forward, gripping the headrest of the seat in front as his wife seated across from him stares blankly out of the window. They pay no attention to their two children who run endlessly up and down the aisle, pausing to climb onto seats. Married seven years, there isn’t much excitement in their lives these days. At the start of the relationship there was though, spontaneous holidays and trips, nights out, being with friends. They unknowingly surrendered this lifestyle when they had children however. Since then the only excitement comes from the rare night at a restaurant or evening where the children are at sleepovers. The occasional obligatory dinner party with their daughter’s friend-from-school’s parents – and as you would expect these evenings struggle to make for a particularly interesting evening. On this occasion it was an attempt at a fun family day out, taking the kids to the cinema only to find themselves sitting through two hours of Pixar’s finest new animation. Two hours sitting in a room full of other children crying, shouting and screaming as though the end of the world for the duration of the film. And a room full of tens of other parents all enduring the same torture. Now they return home to a nice middle class home, parents exhausted from the frustration of children shouting through the film, children still full of the energy they had before the cinema. Tomorrow they will be straight back into the usual routine: up at seven, breakfast, get dressed, kids to school, get to work, pick children up from school, son to football, daughter to dancing, dinner, bed.

And so it goes.

But don’t believe everything you see- or read, for that matter. For these are merely the observations and assumptions based on stereotypes, created by a 15 year old from the top deck of a 38 bus service from Bath Street as she fills her otherwise boring journey with the stories and lives of those around her. And who knows, maybe the man in the grey tracksuit simply wears it for comfort, and is really just going home to an average household to greet his own family – his wife and two children. Maybe she was just being cynical, and the woman in the red coat takes the bus for practical reasons – it’s cheaper than the train and takes her closer to her house. The bus was not made for one group of people with a specific income. Maybe her well- kept, expensive-looking clothes are simply her work clothes, a set of garments selectively and hesitantly chosen on an otherwise smaller budget. This outfit is nicer than the rest of her wardrobe and only worn to work to fit a more prestigious look required for her average office job. It is entirely possible that the family had just had a very exciting day out, at a museum or another more interesting trip. The girl from the back of the bus will step off soon, and go back to her home where instead of living in other people’s stories, will have to live in her own unfulfilled one.