Picture this: yesterday, early morning train going south from London Bridge, seats fill up steadily and inevitably. Across from me, on the other side of the table, a middle-aged man reads the news review section of a Sunday paper he picked up from a nearby stranger. Before picking it up, he asked the stranger politely if he could have it.
To my right is another man, middle-aged as well. He looks at me, not unkindly but wearily, when my phone rings. I speak quietly and gently so as not to annoy him. I don't mind making this allowance. (I know the feeling of having my nerves frayed by loud mobile phone talkers who imprison those around them with their voices, with details of their lives. There's an infringement somewhere in all of this). When I finish he looks at me again with a 'thank you' in his eyes.
The train continues to move us along. People flow in and out of each other's spheres. Four teenage girls join our space. One sits on the seat around our table while the other girls take the few empty places across the aisle. The girl sharing my table has a phone in her hand. After a few minutes, music blares from it. I feel a jolt. At first I think it's a ring tone and prepare myself for the onslaught of a phone conversation. But the music doesn't stop. I notice the people around me looking uncomfortable, annoyed, shifting in their seats. I try to find the most effective words to ask her to turn it down. While I'm mulling it over in my early morning brain, the man next to me speaks. He asks her if she could turn it down. She rolls her eyes, swears, but eventually does. The man across from me looks relieved and disappears behind his paper. People settle.
Then she turns it up again. I see the man across from me try to calm himself. He seems a bit unsure as to what to do; he seems to be building up some courage. He then says,
"Hey come on, please can you turn it down again."
The girl ignores him. Her friend shouts, "Why should she?"
"Because it's a public place, you're sharing the space with other people," he says.
"It doesn't take a fucking genius to figure out there are other people around. Tell me something I don't know, you idiot," she says
The music is still blaring.
The man looks defeated. He tries to say something about respect. She tells him to shut the fuck up.
The girl with the phone is smiling. The music is still blaring.
The man next to me is staring at the girl who yelled at the man. I want to say something but no words come out. Her aggressiveness forces us into a shocked, impotent silence. So he stares, the man next to me, telling her with his eyes.
"Do you have a staring problem? Quit staring at me," she says.
He looks stunned. She shouts at him more. Aggressively, without reason, robbing him of the chance of responding. I catch her eye. She glares.
The music is still blaring.
The next minute I'm off the train. I wonder many things as I walk. Mostly I wonder if we'll always be like this. Warring. Forcing our rights. Claiming our sphere without regard for others. Justifying. And yes, I could laugh about the whole event and say so what, but somehow I can't. Mostly because it wasn't really funny (not even in a teen movie kind of way). And mostly because it's a fragment of a bigger mirror reflecting the actions of the world.
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