An Image of the Moment, Page 2

unsafe regions around the world, places riddled with disease and the smell of death; lost to any sort of help from the 'International Community'. The people there wear masks of some kind and hope they last until the same time next year. The World Health Organization decided to abandon efforts to stem the tide of the Super-Epidemics and cut off aid to the worst affected areas. Would you feel safe if the stranger coughed his germs all over you?

  But the juxtaposition of balloon swinging and hidden facial features still intrigues you.

  The stranger reminds you of some of the black and white stills you saw in an exhibition on The Good Old Days of Hollywood – before all the studios closed and film production became funded by governments. The stranger looks like The Invisible Man – no bandages, just the blank expression of a man who has no thought or feeling left inside him.

  You want to ask him to stop swinging his god damn balloon – the sound of the expanded skin bouncing and squeaking as it lands each time is driving you to distraction. All you can think now is: balloon, balloon, bounce, bounce, burst, burst ...

  How, you wonder, can anyone live for a moment longer like this?

  You must ask him to stop, to lay it on the seat next to him or burst it – that would be best. Perhaps you will grab it from his hand, at the next stop, and release it in to the air. You could lie to him and say you are taking medication that makes you prone to reckless acts of public defiance and that you will pay him for his balloon. How much could a balloon cost?

  You realise you are staring at him, wide-eyed, your mouth is turned down at the edges, like a sad clown. You are entranced by the pure oddness of this man, as if he is holding a gun to your heart and asking you a life or painful death question, this stranger who meant so little to you just a short time ago that you barely acknowledged his presence. And now he is your everything-focus, your every thought. Every movement of his hands, his breath behind the scarf – making the material rise in a small, central bubble where his mouth is – and the eyes you cannot see, all of him and his being there is making you itch to ask him questions; to start a dialogue that might end the torment of the balloon swinging.

  You imagine his head is a balloon too and you can burst it, watch him sag in to nothing but a hat, glasses and scarf: the real invisible man.

  Your mother told you that the best way to avoid embarrassing obstacles in social situations is always to ask people questions about themselves, "Because everybody loves to talk about themselves and their little lives," she had reasoned.

  Do it, you shout in your head, do it now, ask him about the fucking balloon, something to stop this.

  You clear up the sandwich packet and push your newspaper into the small gap between your seat and the one next to you.

  ‘Are you going to Oxford?’ you find yourself asking a simple, straight question – one that immediately strikes you as facile. The train terminates at Oxford.

  The stranger stops swinging the balloon. You feel your breathing slow instantly. You wonder how quickly the sweat trickling down your spine will cease.

  There is a moment of quiet. The stranger turns his head slowly, looks at the balloon, then looks at you. You wonder if he was asleep – the swinging balloon might have been a nervous tic.

  He nods twice, then looks at the balloon again.

  You want to ask him to remove his scarf and glasses. You think to yourself, it is only basic good manners to make eye contact. And why doesn't he answer like any normal person would? You understand shyness and the age of communication by electronic methods, but people still have voices and you want to hear the stranger talk; you must hear the voice behind the scarf. The obsession within you to know how the stranger sounds, what he has to say and how he will say it has hit you like a virus.

  You lean forward and look in to his sunglasses. You can see your reflection; you look strained, as if you are lurching for something and are sure you will miss it or let it go and disappoint those who expect the most from you.

  'Have you visited Oxford before?' you ask.

  Again the stranger answers with two nods. You can feel immediate sweaty heat prickle under your armpits, your eyes are getting sore and you want to shout something.

  Answer me, you mother-fucker, you think.

  The train stops. There is no slowing down, just an instant cessation of movement in the middle of the journey between small district stations.

  Your first thought is of being late for work, but you have a mobile phone and can easily sort things out with your boss. He is an alcoholic and you have had to cover for him many times in the last few years. He owes you lots of flexibility.

  Then your mind wanders to terrorist attacks. There have been fifteen across the country in the last twelve months and five of them were either on trains or blowing up some part of a main station.

  The government keep reassuring the public they are: "On top of the situation". But whenever you hear that phrase you always think of Guy Fawkes being on top of a bonfire. You know you could be wiped off the face of the planet at any moment - an inbetween moment like this, faced with the oddness of the balloon-swinging mute stranger.

  A large part of you doesn't care about death and the hereafter. You don't want to die, who really does, but you feel tired and bored so much of the time; helpless against all the changes you read about and hate the idea of, but you feel too listless to be bothered to complain about. Why would you? There will always be other people willing to speak up on your behalf.

  The train isn't moving or making any mechanical sounds. The overhead lights are flickering like strobes and the Transactioner near you has shutdown.

  You look up and down the carriages. You cannot see any other passengers.

  Have they all disembarked? Are there working Transactioners communicating the need to leave the train and you have found yourself in the lonely position of being left with a faulty machine and a silent weirdo?

  You try to look out of the small window above your head for a sign of faces and legs on the tracks; perhaps a voice, some small indication that there is order around. But you can barely see beyond the frame of the window.

  You slam it shut in frustration.

  'Fucks sake,' you say and look at the stranger quickly, feeling guilty for losing your temper. You flop back in to your seat and feel like a naughty child.

  The stranger looks at you as blankly as before, then he begins to unknot the top of the balloon - the process is slow and you find yourself sitting quietly, watching as if this is an act of religious devotion or perhaps a magic trick.

  The stranger finishes unwinding the neck of the balloon. You realise you have never seen anyone unknot a tied-up balloon before. You suddenly picture his hands at work on the neck of a turkey or a young woman - his massive, paw-like mitts wrapped around a smooth and slender throat. Maybe he is a terrorist. Maybe he has some sort of killer gas inside the balloon and he is about to release it. If that is the case, what will you feel first - a burning in your lungs? Your eyes melting shut?

  You look at his hands - they are mostly a very dark pink, his knuckles are almost black with traces of some yellow; you are surprised you did not notice this previously. You wonder whether you should leap forward and stop him before he can let the air - or god knows what - out of the inflatable. But instead you keep watching, passively waiting for the unknown. There is a message in your head: 'Wait and listen'. You wonder what the hell that means. Is it something your partner said to you recently when you were arguing? It sounds just like a statement she might make to shut you up when you are ranting about a minor issue.

  You begin to lose patience with the train and the stranger. You feel as if you cannot breathe. You reach up and re-open the useless window above your head, attempting a quick up-the-tracks glance to find some solace in your growing anxiety. But there is none to be had.

  The stranger holds the neck of the balloon shut and stands up
slowly. He stretches - arms wide as if he imagines himself an angel, or perhaps, you wonder, he is about to pretend he is an airplane - run up and down the carriage expelling air from the balloon as engine-noise - and allow you to reach the unequivocal conclusion that he is insane.

  But you are actually certain he has his eyes set on you and your fate.

  You think to yourself, this is it, this is the moment when the scarf and the glasses finally come off - a hideous face of vengeance and fury revealed - and the gas of death is released point blank in to your face.

  You wonder what the news reports will say about you - will they even mention your name? There are so many attacks, all over the country, not just the explosions, but riots too, mass public demonstrations of defiance against the government that always seem to descend in to violence, looting, pepper-spraying, broken limbs and mass arrests. There have been reports of some deaths in police custody.

  These days no one has a name when bad things happen.

  The stranger moves slowly and deliberately. He behaves as if he has seen everything there is to see - like a much older man who will take as long as he damn well pleases. He doesn't look that much older than you - perhaps five to ten years.

  Eventually he sits directly opposite you, holding his balloon erect like a flag, unmoving now, no more swinging, no more overt agitation,