Dignity

While we stood in the car park at midday, we saw the real display of dignity. A Muslim taxi driver had stopped his car just as he exited the round about, got out and was standing with his head bowed next to the door in the middle of the road. There he remained for the next two minutes as cars worked around him. An island amidst the chaos.

In defiance or indifference?

We observed the two minutes’ silence today collectively as an organization, standing in the blazing sun in the car park. I feel sad and distant from my colleagues at the moment. They talk about these event momentarily, but the happy, jolly mood prevails, as if nothing has happened of significance. I hated some of these people as they stood out in the car park, laughing and joking merrily until the clock struck twelve. Two minutes without words, though all the cars but one continued their journeys onwards. No sooner were the two minutes up, however, and a bunch of fools burst into laughter, the usual suspects with their self-centred nonsense. I returned inside in silence, lamenting the hideous hypocrisy. For the past week I have been wandering around, fearing that our time is up in this country. That we have reached the end of the road. The Reichstag has been torched, thus the pogroms begin. But looking around me, I doubt this now. These people are indifferent in extremis. Like my journey in East London two days after the bombings, the people did not look sad; quite the contrary, it was business as usual, smiles on a thousand faces. Journalists are calling it defiance; I would call it something else.

I arrive at work just after 8am

Today the news about the suspects has reached the world and the conversation in the office when I arrive is all about Muslims. They did it because it is part of their faith. Sinking in my seat I keep my head down. Now is not the time “to come out”.

Grammar

My wife is stranded in London, so she’s gone to wait with a friend. She has an appointment in the morning so she can’t stay overnight. I leave home at 8.30, clear roads all the way, from this hilly valley to those towers of concrete. Indoors we’re all glued to our TVs. Few cars pass me all the way. I arrive at 9.20 just in time for Maghrib, gliding through the ghost town. I tell my friend I’m disgusted by all this – I say I know our thoughts should be with the victims, but I can’t help praying that the perpetrators are anarchists or something. My friend says they are – but he is using it as an adjective. I want it to be the noun.

Distraction

Work goes on. I’m asked to attend a meeting in the afternoon. We’re discussing the implementation of Choose and Book in our GP Practices. I’m with them at first, but my mind begins to wander. I am sitting at the back of that now mangled bus. I’m on my way to work, minding my own business, lost in my own world. There’s a bag left underneath my seat. I look to my left and right, I assume it belongs to one of my fellow passengers, but I don’t ask them. Perhaps they’re wondering the same thing. But we all mind our own business; we always do. I’m not in my meeting now. They’re speaking but I don’t hear them. I’m in that bus and it suddenly explodes and what is the end for me? I feel sick. I can see those poor souls as their bodies are torn to shreds by a bomb beneath the seat. Their last moment gone before they could even see it coming. The shock jolts me back to my meeting. I was supposed to be taking notes, I’ve missed the conversation, it has passed me by. Did the people who did this never visualize that moment as I did in my meeting? Did they never imagine that when they planted their bombs? Could they have done this if they had? I feel like I’m going to be sick, but I block it from my mind. Back to Choose and Book. When we leave the room we are told that we have been officially stood down. Crisis over. But I still feel sick.