A few years ago, when I was living in Lewisham, I was waiting at the bus stop with a fat girl who, I would’ve ventured to guess, was of a distinctly underclass provenance, and who was eating a bag of Wotsits.
She finished them, the bus still hadn’t arrived. The litter bin was directly in front of her. I watched her watching it, bottom lip stuck out. Putting the crisp packet in the bin required the most miniscule of efforts. She dropped it on the floor. It was a windy day and it almost went in the bin accidentally. Instead, it swirled around our feet.
Perhaps she had been aware of me watching her, but I don’t think so. I don’t think it was for my benefit. As she followed the crisp packet’s progress she turned her head and looked directly at me. There was an absolute deadness, a blankness of expression, an a-signifying, affective absence that seemed somehow to be mocking me. Catatonic-aggressive. She seemed not to register my presence at all, cancelled me out, looked straight through me, then looked away. Her face a rictus. She was sixteen or so years old. We were dead to each other, drifting through different dimensions. Yet her action was a gesture certainly, a form of protest, an attack on reality, a refusal. There were only the two of us at the bus stop. I could, seemingly easily, have spoken to her, but the right words wouldn’t come to me. I wasn’t confident that I could speak in any meaningful way, and besides, I realised quite suddenly that I was frightened of doing so. I was at a threshold I didn’t have the nerve to cross. I would feel how alien I was to her. Appearing suddenly out of thin air, babbling in tongues. How alien I was to myself. Instead, I squinted down at my feet till the bus turned up.
Life went on. A few moments on a miserable, cold South London afternoon.
Why, out of all the thousands of incidents and irritations that accrete in a city dweller’s consciousness, would you remember this?
She finished them, the bus still hadn’t arrived. The litter bin was directly in front of her. I watched her watching it, bottom lip stuck out. Putting the crisp packet in the bin required the most miniscule of efforts. She dropped it on the floor. It was a windy day and it almost went in the bin accidentally. Instead, it swirled around our feet.
Perhaps she had been aware of me watching her, but I don’t think so. I don’t think it was for my benefit. As she followed the crisp packet’s progress she turned her head and looked directly at me. There was an absolute deadness, a blankness of expression, an a-signifying, affective absence that seemed somehow to be mocking me. Catatonic-aggressive. She seemed not to register my presence at all, cancelled me out, looked straight through me, then looked away. Her face a rictus. She was sixteen or so years old. We were dead to each other, drifting through different dimensions. Yet her action was a gesture certainly, a form of protest, an attack on reality, a refusal. There were only the two of us at the bus stop. I could, seemingly easily, have spoken to her, but the right words wouldn’t come to me. I wasn’t confident that I could speak in any meaningful way, and besides, I realised quite suddenly that I was frightened of doing so. I was at a threshold I didn’t have the nerve to cross. I would feel how alien I was to her. Appearing suddenly out of thin air, babbling in tongues. How alien I was to myself. Instead, I squinted down at my feet till the bus turned up.
Life went on. A few moments on a miserable, cold South London afternoon.
Why, out of all the thousands of incidents and irritations that accrete in a city dweller’s consciousness, would you remember this?
3 comments:
Ouch! Been there and felt the attendant self-loathing for not having acted. Reminds me of Gibby Haynes "it's better to regret something you have done...". Face it, you should have kicked her in the cunt.
ahh no.. you've completely misunderstood me dear ashdav.. i suppose that's the problem with oblique responses...
Err.. maybe you've misunderstood me. Did you think I was serious?
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