Tuesday, 29 January 2008
An Unexpected Encounter
It's been two weeks and mixed emotions. The usual stew; anger, jealousy, acceptance, compassion, etc. The usual questions. How can this sort of thing happen in a civilised society? It was a cold December morning, the kind of morning where the grass crackles underfoot, the kind of morning perfect if someone you know spots you smoking when you shouldn't be and tells your mother. The kind of morning where male genitalia behave like a tortoise, fending a predator.
When my phone rang, I was surprised. She had kissed me goodbye and ten minutes later I was ready to head out the door. He did what? By the time I put the phone down I had already imagined several gruesome scenarios, one involving the park's resident swans and many more which reminded me that television has done a half arsed job ridding me of my imaginative faculties. Whatever the method and no matter how I embellished the grim fantasy, the result was always the same.
Before I knew it I was on the bus, questioning my manliness and entertaining the idea of getting off and beginning a manhunt for the perpetrator of this (probably common) unsettling episode. I also wondered why manliness is invariably measured in units of pummelling.
By the time I was anchored at my desk, my girlfriend had assured me she was well and that it was overkill to call around her home town of Strabane, to look for some out of work Provos to do some freelance work for us. So I attempted to go about my daily chores but could not refrain from dwelling on that morning's incident. Both rational and irrational thoughts tangoed about my mind. For example I did bare a momentary grudging respect, especially considering the windchill. But that quickly passed as the stupidity of such a thought poked me in the eye and I began re-evaluating some of my more reactionary notions. The use of the word normal, relative to society, is usually a term that is shy of me, though in recognising that the majority of ideas occupying the public consciousness are useless and dumb, that elusive (inane) feeling of belonging, is one which I am largely comfortable with. However, in this instance, it is sufficiently broad enough to encompass the vast majority of us. The gentleman in question is obviously one that falls outside such categorisation.
I wondered how can this happen in a civilised society such as ours? And in retrospect perhaps it happens as a result of the nature of our civilised society. Our sexualised, unequal and often uncaring society. With so little room to move and so little chance of being heard above the din of modernity, people get left behind or worse still trampled on. I'm sure most people have felt or will feel like getting off and just standing still. I know I have. I've even considered jumping, not knowing the dangers. I tried to think of what sort of person would behave like this. I concluded, any sort of person. Though on this occasion, this particular individual's behaviour diminishes the compassion I am capable of feeling, it does not eradicate it. I wonder how qualified or objective we are to label ourselves civilised. And if our Saturday night interactions are civilised, I shudder at the cruelties capable in a society lacking our collective sense of right and wrong. From an unexpected encounter I find this an unexpected reaction.
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