Anger

I climbed the stairs as fast as I could manage. This was not very fast, as my heavy bag was slipping from my shoulder and my suitcase, held awkwardly at my side and lifted not quite clear of the steps by burning arm muscles, was colliding with my shins and thighs. Later my left leg would be grubby with blue-grey bruises. But at the time I barely felt it. I felt only the lactic acid building above my knees, the pain in my arm and shoulder, my lungs on fire. I reached the top and with the last force I could muster, thrust my suitcase up onto the platform. My lungs breathed brief relief but only for the slightest of instants before my eyes registered the emptiness of my surroundings.Something was missing. Something of great significance was missing from the scene. I had missed it. I had missed the train.

A decidedly unattractive woman in her sixties kindly informed me of this. Oh! Thank you, kind stranger! You have surely saved my life, for had you not warned me of this, I might have tried to mount the steps of the train that is no longer there, and I would have fallen to my death on the tracks! I turned away to deprive her of the delicious schaudenfreude she no doubt sought. I threw my bag to the ground in the awful anguish of having relief granted then immediately snatched back from one’s trembling grasp. Tears came, hot and fast, much too fast for me to catch them back. Much faster than I’d been able to run. I kicked over my case. And I swore, violently, explosively, in my mother tongue. The Queen’s English, as only the Queen knows best.

Oh, I’d seen it coming. I knew when I rang you that it’d be just that little bit too long before your car pulled up to greet me. The lacklustre urgency we both displayed, putting the case in the boot. Slamming doors, but only gently; speeding, but not too speedily. When I got out, I stopped to kiss you. Perhaps I shouldn’t have. Perhaps I knew that it was too late anyway, that I might as well. An urgent, yet lacklustre kiss. Mercenary. Our teeth would have smashed had we no lips to take the hit. And then, I ran.

Now I was angry. Furiously frustrated, as though I was angry at myself. I wasn’t. I was angry at you.

How could I be? You’d only meant well. I was grateful for the lift, and I wasn’t the only one with somewhere to be. It’s hard, too, to be angry at those we’re close to. As though there’s a space next to our heart the anger can’t quite get to. A blind spot. I couldn’t be angry with you because the anger was just bouncing back off my own ribs. Besides, the train wasn’t the only thing I was going to miss.

So I just stood, angry at no one in particular, crying at unfortunate circumstance, in the queue for a new train ticket. I could feel the glances of those around me. The crying girl. Why do I find myself, time after time, weeping on train platforms? Why do their eyes lack even a mote of concern?

I exchanged my ticket for a later train. The man at the desk, at least, was quietly sympathetic. I even got money back; the later train was, in fact, a five hour bus replacement, slightly less costly, but the fine time margin I’d later be cutting could cost me dearly. Dejected, I sat down on a station bench, letting my bag fall to my feet.

In front of me, there was an information desk. A gentleman in a suit approached it and began conversing with the people behind it. He was behaving slightly strangely; his gestures were rather exaggerated, and his voice a little too loud. Then I heard that his speech wasn’t quite right, either. I looked to the faces of the people behind the glass. Their bodies were rather stiff; their faces were frozen between uncertainty and amusement. The man kept gesturing to the bag at his feet. It was multi-coloured plastic. He bent down, then up again, then down, and from the bag he pulled out a dirty neck-brace and a crumpled sheet of paper. It was then that I realised he was mad, for want of a more scientific term. Quite mad.

He carried on shouting and gesticulating at the people behind the glass. He looked lost, and frustrated. The woman was chewing gum in an exaggerated manner, and from where I was sitting, it looked as though she was mocking him. My heart filled with pity. I wondered what was wrong, what he was trying to ask them. Then he turned back to the glass and they’d closed it, and left the kiosk.

The man picked up his plastic bag and stormed over to where I was sitting. As he approached, I saw how filthy his suit was, how unkempt his hair was. Just in front of me were four public telephones arranged around a metal pole. He placed his bag back down and picked up a receiver to put against his ear. His hands didn’t move quite the way you would expect them to. The fingers were purplish, and a little too short. I was curious as to who he was phoning. No one, it seemed, for he put no money in, and punched numbers at random, mumbling all the while. Before the phone could even hypothetically have dialed, he shouted, “C’est pas la peine!” and moved on to the next phone, to carry out the same ritual.  What’s the use! It’s not worth it! Worth what? To whom was he trying to make a phone call, in his world, estranged and not parallel but perpendicular to my own? His anger seemed feigned; it was as though a child was playing the role of an angry person. The pacing back and forth, the gestures, the comments loud enough for everyone to hear, though directed at no one in particular. But he feigned nothing. To him it was entirely real, this anger at the world around him. He stormed out of the station. I saw him cross the road and then he was out of sight. 

My own anger had dissipated. I had seen it parodied before me as though upon a stage. It was not an act I wished to play. C’est pas la peine.