The more we do nothing

The temperature hovers low and we protect ourselves as best we can; strangers lined up silently at the bus stop in the grey cushion of an after-work afternoon. The wind darts between us like an excited child through a carnival crowd. The mercury plunges.

The unemployed carpenter draws tightly on the wet end of a twice-lit cigarette and contemplates the bus fare, wasted in another unsuccessful search for work. Bitter lines, etched more by recent experience than by the weather, scribe forceful patterns across his face. The raised worn collar shields him more from the world than the wind. He withdraws into his own worries.

Cursing contemporary fashion, a lost teenager in torn shorts, black body stockings, and red cotton jacket tries to hide the shivers that ripple like winter waves across her slender frame. She stamps her fragile too-thin spiked heels in a vain attempt to warm herself and mutters something blasphemous under her breath.

At the end of the line, a small child clings to the hem of his mother's coat and cries quietly.

Without warning, like the strike of a snake's tongue in summer, the mother's hand slips out to sting his face and, just as quickly, it returns to her pocket again. His head snaps back from where it rested against her. Stunned eyes search for understanding. A silent waterfall creeps it's way across the rising welt and splashes on the pavement by his foot.

Does he dare to speak? Can he ask for understanding? Would the ensuing punishment be worth the satisfaction of knowing? Without sound he answers his own question and drops his hand from his mother's coat. With practiced caution he takes one step back and waits for the warm bus to arrive.

Further up the line an elderly woman, well secured against the chill, watches him step back and reflects on the abuse of her own childhood. A whispered voice inside calls out for her to intervene but the memory of the violence she suffered when she tried to protect her little sister strangles her into silence. The knowledgeable, intelligent voice in her head says that her childhood history shouldn't hold her back but the child that lives on inside is too afraid to let her move. At seventy, she is still paralysed by the destruction of her own innocence.

The carpenter flicks his cigarette into the gutter and turns away. When he was a kid, he would have got a lot worse than that for crying in public. This kid was getting off easy as far as he was concerned. If one of his kids embarrassed him like that they'd get more than just a slap on the face. There were some things you just didn't do and crying on your mother's skirt in public was one of them. You had to be tough to get by in this world; his old man had taught him that. He'd learned, and so would the kid at the end of the line. The slap on the face was good for him.

The teenager in the red coat thinks about how her brother cries every time he goes to their father's place. Something about the little boy at the end of the line makes her wonder what happens when her father takes him out on the weekend. But at least her brother gets to spend time with dad. Ever since her parent's separation she never spends time with either of them. They both seem too busy, or too caught up with the other kids, to do anything with her. Anger rises up again, blinding her to the searching eyes of the child at the end of the row. She springs from the line-up and storms back into town for the night. What was the sense in going home anyway!

Beneath stunned still searching eyes, the tears continue to flow over innocent wind-burned cheeks. Faces turn away, thoughts turn inwards, and bodies shift uncomfortably in the wind. Here and there resentful looks sweep fleetingly in his direction. Everyone reacts but no-one responds. “What right do you have to make us feel this way?", is the only answer he can find. The lesson he is learning tattoos itself upon his heart.

The more we do nothing the more things stay the same.

Thom