Reading is bad for your health.

As reading is bad for your health you have a chance to listen to this short story. 



We’d arranged to meet at the bus stop just by the clock tower but my excitement was beginning to wane. Two buses had been and gone since the allotted time and she’d not been on either of them. Was I being stood up? As I was watching a learner driver failing to reverse park, a third bus pulled up but I could see she was not on that one either.

We’d met about four months earlier when I started going to a reading group. We’d hit it off immediately. The others in the group must have been thinking we should have got a room as we flirted our way through the books.  I'm sure we’d have got a room too if it wasn’t for the fact her husband would not have liked that very much.

At first, our relationship stayed inside the book club. But then she’d texted me and I’d texted back and now a day didn’t go by without at least one text and usually more. Over the last few days it had turned into a flurry and then she had suggested going for a drink, just 'the two of us'.

It was getting dark now and the lights inside the next bus shone through the gloom. Again there was no sign of Louisa but I had become aware of someone else waiting at the bus stop with me. I think he’d got off the second bus, looked at me carefully and then crossed the road. Now he was back and again seemed to be taking an unhealthy interest in me. Suddenly he sprung into action. His hands came up  and shoved me in the chest. I lost balance and staggered backwards.

‘Who the fuck are you?’ I asked, but he just shifted the weight from one foot to another and launched a haymaker that connected with my temple. I felt my knees buckle and my mind warp. Sirens began to wail in the middle distance. He turned to see a police car heading our way. He stood over me.

‘You fucking leave my wife alone or else next time it’ll be much worse.’ He then spat on me, aimed a kick at my nether regions, called me a scumbag and legged it.

I lay there dazed and confused, thinking that I should definately give up reading, it is obviously bad for your health.