London tube train
London Bombs.
I sit here in a crowded restaurant in crowded Soho in crowded London reading a notice which begins ‘Be alert for bombs’ – ‘Terrorist activities’. ‘Report any suspicious activities and unattended parcels or bags.’
Is this for real? Am I dreaming? My antipodean mind, never needing to have been confronted first hand with this concept ever before, worries as I glide steeply on the three floors escalator to the platform. Eyeing every potential terrorist, I wonder what he looks like. A woman maybe? I am pushed and shoved by innocent, unsuspecting commuters who know their way on this tube system, eager to be home, meet family, friends, wives, husbands, lovers.
Safely on the platform, I view the ‘people en masse’ and wonder how anyone could set a bomb. I look at one of the mass, one human being – you the black girl. You with the beautiful round face and big, lash sweeping eyes, sharp white in contrast to your ebony skin, you with the long, tight knotted plaits woven with Caribbean coloured threads. I look down to her stylish black, silver-buckled boots. I flick to her outrageously huge silver bull ring earrings and drop my gaze over her smart, heavy black, ankle length coat with great collar pulled high, the gay, coloured scarf tucked to keep out the -6°c winter up top. She is beautiful, a treasure of the Tube.
When I close my eyes I see an unaccompanied bag, waiting. Someone knows about it, but who? I open the bag with a film clip from Terminator, a clip which shows the slow motion progress of the explosion. A movement, something bulging, something angular pushing the outer skin of this stoutly built case. It expands to bursting point, there is a tremor and many sharp angles bust through the puffed up fabric with a star exploding fire flash… Then, with the aid of any of the gruesome, gratuitously violent ‘action’ movies littering our movie screens, I view the black girl’s clothing suddenly whip violently. Her eyes register alarm, the whites bulging in the momentary extremity of her fear. I see her beautiful features twist, contort and snap in the violence of the pressure wave – as her body lifts, liquefies and explodes onto the tiled walls of the Underground. Still in the slow motion grip of a nightmare Hollywood invention I see the masonry falling through the searing fire ball, now crumpling and imploding the arriving train, the brightly lit tube full of commuters packing home this Christmas eve. The parcels, the tiny tinsel trees and Christmas lights…
