What the hell are you looking at?

I was walking down the street with my dog, minding my own business, the sun warm on my face. Cars rushing, people brushing past. Birds in harmony with bike wheels, singing their summer cicada song. I didn't expect it. I had no expectations. I never have any expectations. They are not something often afforded to me. Not something I often afford myself.

So I wasn't expecting it. I wasn't expecting it. Just out of the blue. The voice of a person I hadn't seen. A voice that made me stop and turn.

"What the hell are you looking at?"

The man squared up to me. I could feel his presence bristling to start trouble, to kick off, to fight. What do you say to that? What the hell am I looking at? "You? I'm looking at you?" Only asking for more trouble. Does he want trouble? Is that what he wanted? Trouble?

What else could I say? The tension, in those seconds, mounted like gargantuan waves about to break. The calm before the tsunami. My dog whimpered and growled, quietly. I hadn't been looking at him. I could say, "nothing". I could say "nothing", and keep walking. No trouble. No nothing. Just silence, darkness, moving on.

Let me tell you now, I am not normally one to put people on the spot. I don't like to embarrass people. I don't like to make a scene. I just like to mind my own business. Walk down the street on a summer's day with the sun on my face. Looking at no-one.

But he said it again. "I said," he said, "What the hell are you looking at?" he said.
So I stopped. And I stared at him, blankly, dead in the face.
And I said, "I wasn't looking at you," I said.
He started to say something. I interrupted him.
"I'm blind", I said.

And I walked off into the darkness of my summer's day, leaving him in his colourful, broken silence.