See Him

You can see him can’t you? He’s looking at you. He’s looking at you and he’s thinking about how pathetic you are. He’s thinking about where you come from. He thinks you’re a delinquent, a drop out, a bum, a waster. He’s looking at the tattoo on your arm. You can see him looking can’t you? He knows you’re a pervert. He knows you like to look at the girls in your mom’s catalogue and that you think about them late at night. He knows what you’re like. Pathetic. You’re going to let him judge you aren’t you? He’s just some pompous old man, no match for you, and you’re just going to sit there and pick at your nails. You’re fucking pathetic! You’ve got the knife haven’t you? Teach that bastard a lesson. You should show him what you’re made of. You should show him it’s him and his nosey fucking attitude that’s pathetic. But you won’t will you? You’re a coward. A pathetic coward. You’re just pretending to be normal aren’t you? On the bus with the rest of these fuck faces. They’re all watching you you know. You move your bag from one side to the other and you shuffle your feet and you chew you nails. Your gaze won’t rest on one place for too long. Scared aren’t you? Pathetic. You really going to let the fucking old man look at you like that? Show him your steel. Stop being so fucking PATHETIC!!

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I can see them all. They’re all looking at me. They think I haven’t noticed them judging, but I have. He judges me all the time. Him, the guy that’s always there. Like the stupid old man looking at me now. He’s judging me. He probably thinks I’m pathetic. I’m not pathetic you know. They all just make me nervous. All the eyes, and the stares. The way they look worried when they see me like I’m going to do something crazy. Like I am crazy. I’m not crazy. I wish he’d shut up. He confuses me. His voice is always there, buzzing with the noises around me. That old man’s watching me again. He’s pretending he’s not, sneaking glances over and around his bloody paper. He’s right you know. He’s judging me. Thinking I’m pathetic and worthless and weak. I’m not. I’m fucking not. He’s shouting now. The noises! The engine of the bus whirrs, the schoolgirls chatter and giggle, the driver choughs, the old man’s paper rustles as he adjusts it for a better view. A better view of me. The psycho in the corner. The one twitching and tapping. The one that’s reaching into his bag. The one that just wants the noise to stop. I need to stop the noises. The voices. The paper. The engine. I need to stop HIM. I need to stop being so fucking PATHETIC!!!

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They all see him sitting on the back row of the bus, all hunched up in the corner. The driver is keeping a close eye on him. He’s got those shifty eyes that make him nervous.

He got on the bus two stops ago and he hasn’t sat still since. He’s fidgeting around, shuffling his bag from one place to the next. His feet are tapping and he’s muttering under his breath whilst picking the shredded skin around his nails.

There are two school girls a couple of seats in front of him, trying their best to ignore him and the uncomfortable feeling that he sends running up their spines. They decide to play a game of word association to pass the time.

On the seat behind the driver’s cabin is an elderly gentleman. His beige trousers are neatly pressed, his brown shoes perfectly polished, and above the pristine collar of a crisp blue shirt he is cleanly shaven. His white hair is parted and styled with not one strand out of place. He barely notices the young man at the back of the bus. He’d seen him get on of course, and he can hear him muttering and fidgeting, but he pays him no heed. He’s none of his business and he is quite happy reading his paper and surveying the passing landscape as he turns from one article to the next.

The bus driver is distracted by him, nearly hitting two cats and running a red light because of keeping an eye on the weirdo. He can see him getting more wound up. A tightly coiled spring that keeps pulling on its hair in growing frustration at some internal confusion.

The tension on the bus is tight. It grows and spreads and pulsates from the guy crunched up in the back left hand corner. Only the old man, sitting behind the diver’s cabin, his back to one window, reading the paper, seems oblivious to the problems in this tiny space.

The strange passenger reaches down to move his bag yet again. He pulls it slower this time. It slides quietly, stealthily to the corner, away from the aisle. The pale, chewed fingers of the troubled youth slip under the flap of this tattered backpack.

The bus moves in slow motion. Time begins to play tricks. The youth becomes a gazelle. The schoolgirl’s scream and the mother’s protective cries are agonizingly prolonged. Brakes yell their protest at being applied too suddenly. The youth is propelled faster toward his goal. He keeps flying and the bus stops moving. The glimmer of silver is seen. Straight and hard in his clenched fist.

The gentleman lowers his paper to his lap and looks up distractedly to see what the commotion was all about. Before he realises the cause of the spreading red stain on his perfect shirt and the throbbing, warm ache in his chest he is dead.