bus

I get the bus to work most days. I wait at the stop just opposite my street. So anyway, a couple of evenings ago I was sitting there, at the stop. Waiting with me was this shifty looking guy. Just shifty enough, off-normal enough, for me to think I wouldn't like him if I met him. He was dressed in a suit, an Asian guy, and sort of squinted his way along the ground, never stood still or sat down. I don't know- it wasn't much, not a big deal or anything, but I just didn't like the look of him. We waited about ten minutes for the bus, at which point he perked up and made a rush out of nothing, creep-jumping his way in front of me to get on first. I knew it! He is a shifty character. I felt vindicated in my first impression analysis of him. I didn't like him.

Then the strange thing happened. Shifty got off the bus just two stops down the Lisburn Road. Why would you wait ten minutes for a bus to bring you 200 metres down the street? It wasn't dark, it wasn't raining... But as he got off, another man got on. A guy with dark skin, a scraggly beard, and a back pack. I know, I agree, the ensuing thoughts are embarrassing to say the least. They were embarrassing at the time. I hated my reactionary assessment even as I sat there on the bus. Was he in some way connected to Shifty? Had I witnessed some coded exchange? This guy could totally be a suicide bomber. And I told my mind to shut up, to get a grip.

Honestly, my head was frantic. Switching between fear and fairness. Trying to solidify a rational and more typical response. It was bizzarrely uncomfortable. I'll confess to having had similar pop-up thoughts before, these Pavlovian responses - like when people have knelt in prayer facing Mecca on flights I've been on. These thoughts are very easily discarded, but I reckon largely inescapable thanks to media hype. This was different, and it was the strange circumstance with Shifty that sparked it off. This time I actually felt it. Heat, pulse. I was embarrassed to feel it. I was offended at the possibility of judging people like this, that my core being would react like this. But I realised you don't get to convince your irrational fears to leave your head. I concluded to sit, ashamed of my fear, and blow up if necessary, rather than be one of those who gets off public transport every time a Muslim gets on.

But my Bomber got off the bus first, with his backpack I noted, before we reached the City Hall - the place my fear assumed he would detonate. (How embarrassing to write all this).

So, I got safely unexploded to work. I say 'work', but this night we were off to the Waterfront Hall to watch Marcelo Bratke, a Brazilian classical pianist, perform with two percussionists from the favelas of Sau Paulo. Bratke came on first. A large screen above the stage hosted projected images of his left and right hands playing different rhythms in a gorgeous melancholic piece by Heitor Villa-Lobos. It was staggering. He stood for the applause after this, the first recital, and then beckoned for his companions to come on stage. And on came, yeah seriously, my Bomber.