I was relieved to be on the bus and on the way back to Hong Kong, but not so happy about my neighbour, one level below; a policeman. To add to my discomfort, he’d removed all of his clothes apart from his boxer shorts. Six hours later the whole bus was sleeping, apart from the two of us; him sitting bolt upright – me watching out of the corner of my eye. Was he going to wait for me to fall asleep and then bugger me? No… he was travel-sick. He rushed to the doors, and with the conductor hanging onto the waistband of his briefs, leant out into the dark to throw up. A long time passed, and I began to wonder if the conductor was just holding a pair of pants in the breeze, but eventually he was swung back in.

Almost as soon as he regained the upright position on his seat, the bus slammed to a halt – bags, bottles and bodies flying down the bus. Ahead, a white van had blocked us in a narrow lane, and in the stark headlights I saw what appeared to be the cast of ‘Hawaii Five-O’ leap from every door; loud shirts, white trousers, barracuda faces. I was in the front seat, street-lit through the windscreen, in full view – as they formed a semicircle round the front of the bus; I knew they weren’t about to sing Christmas Carols. I was the only Westerner on the bus. I tried to screw my eyes up in an Asian style, but I was fooling nobody – I was the target.

The conductor held the doors shut with his back as the driver spoke to them through his barely open window. Holding grimly onto my bag, I looked down to the left and straight down the barrel of a Smith and Wesson revolver. The policeman was smiling manically up at me with one finger to his lips… ’sssshhhh!’

Whatever the driver said – worked, and they moved off back to the van; apart from one, who remained dead centre between the windscreen wipers. He stared straight at me, and I stared back – mesmerised like a rabbit in a stoat’s gaze. My arse clammed up in fright. He slowly raised a hand and pointed a loaded finger at me – fired an invisible bullet, turned and walked. I looked down at my policeman – he was ‘my’ policeman now. He buttoned the gun back into his holster, resumed the lotus position and looked over at me with a sickly grin. I knew it had been my lucky day.

An extract from Two Minute Noodle – to be published very shortly