No one can be that shallow! Can they?

on the way home from a gruelling day at class and work

It saddens me to realise that we live in a world where the average person no longer feels safe in their community and in their daily lives. We lived in the Stone Ages, then the Middle Ages, the Industrial Age, the Information Age and now, the Terrorism Age. We are confronted by images of terrorism each day and do what we can to put it away in the *don't bother me* section of the brain; but not anymore. It is time that we, as a society face up to this terrible and harsh reality that is terrorism fuelled by who else than terrorists, people that strike terror into everyday living.

I finished class one night and waited, as always, for a late running train. Fed up of standing around and hoping for the best, I geared myself up for a bit of train station hopping. This only further delays the inevitable of standing around waiting for the above mentioned late running train. Anyway, it was a cool night and what would happen will continue to haunt me until I get my Platinum Visa. It was a terrible and shocking experience. I waited fourty minutes for a train. Wait, there is more. After standing for that amount of time, I walked into a carriage and was curious as to why everyone was looking up the stairs towards the top section of the train. I looked too and noticed empty seats and thought everyone was a fool for standing up. So I climbed the stairs and sat down on an empty chair. When the doors started to close on the train, someone fat, hairy and kinda smelly person got up from behind me, walked past and stood at the top of the stairs. He turned around, closed his eyes and brought his hands together and......oh the terrible memories.....started to pray.

I had caught the cult train.

Everyone looked like those people who belong in cults; ugly with unwashed hair, unkept clothes and that empty look in their eyes that said all the answers in the world were with their leader. People who would wear white socks with black shoes if the leader ordered them.

I looked on in shock as everyone else around me started to pray along with him and started to realise why there where empty seats. Not one to endure another fifteen minutes on my feet, I decided it was my right to sit on the train and but not my decision to suffer this batant act of terrorism and believe, I was in a paralysed state of terror.

Not being an overly religious person and not wanting to be raped into their cult, I instintively pulled the most viceful thing I had, esquire magazine. This brought a sense of comfort for a few minutes and then the singing started. It wasn't hymms or anything remotely pop; it was something like that Hilsong cult; all happy and twisted and...it makes me sick thinking about it. It was disgusting and I sat petrified. I had never experienced such fear in my life. I frozed and looked on in horror as that fat ugly guy at the front of the carriage started to walk down the aisle and handing out pamplets to people. I had no where to go and unlike those whimpy mormons, I wasn't looking for a confrontation.

The noise they were generating not only made me fearful, but more importantly, embarrassed. Embrassed that others on the train might have thought I was part of their cult, regardless of how well I dressed and looked. So what could I have done? Not much, except that I pulled out my new mobile phone, plugged in the earphones and listened to "Hey Miss Hilton, you must be worth a trillion bucks, get the feeling you don't really give a fuck" and yes, I didn't give a fuck. I felt protected by the music that was coming from my phone. This gave me strength and confidence so when that fat guy arrived at my seat, I looked up him and retuned my gaze back to esquire. Not getting the message, he thrusted the pamplet in front of me and placed it on my esquire, my precious magazine. So I tilted my trust magazine up to ensure the pamplet will slide away. It did.

Those terrorist should be arrested and sent to Tasmania. How dare they force their religon on me. How dare he force me to take that pamplet. How dare he didn't give me the choice of saying no; that is the precise reason why I have different credit cards, choice. To deny one of choice is an act of terrorism. But don't ask me who they were or what they believed in, because like Mis Hilton, I don't give a fuck.

posted by tykang @ 10/30/2004 09:16:00 PM