The First Word Blog

I had a lot on my mind and when that happens I know that I won’t get anything written. The only cure I know is to go out and bring some paper and my trusty fountain pen and find somewhere different to write. On this occasion I took a bus into Newcastle and after walking around a bit found a cafe and purchased a BLT and a Mocha. The music they were playing was some kind of Jazz fusion thing and I put my squidgy earphones in to deaden the sound a little. I was just about to put pen to paper when a large middle aged man mumbled something and took a seat opposite me. The cafe was not busy so I looked around as if to give him a non-verbal message that there were plenty of other seats. He had a Diet Coke and was drinking this in a fairly animated way. it occurred to me that in fact the can was empty and he was in fact pretending, fairly unconvincingly, to drink it presumably for my benefit as there was no one else around. When he finished this he placed the can on my tray next to my half finished coffee and sandwich. I raised an eyebrow and at this point I slowly began to realise that this man was perhaps suffering from mental health problems. He was staring at me.

I had written three words on my paper and he was reading these out loud, ‘What’s going on?’ he then proceeded to answer this question, that he presumably thought I had posed for his benefit. I pretended not to be aware of his monologue as I had the earphones in and couldn’t really hear what he was saying in any case. He then got up and left and I felt a bit relieved. By this time the cafe was empty except for a busker sitting near the window. I started writing again and switched off from my surroundings when I was suddenly aware of a large middle aged man sitting down again in front of me this time with a Diet Coke and a BLT. He stared at me as he ate his sandwich in silence and then drank the Diet Coke without once taking his eyes off me. After he had almost finished (almost is an important word as will become clear) he let out an enormous belch that sent several soggy crumbs of partly masticated BLT over my own sandwich and into my coffee and most annoyingly onto my paper forcing me to stop writing. I wiped these off with a paper napkin and closed my pad. He continued to stare at me as I did this with no word of apology. I felt a growing sense of unease, a feeling that has served me well over the years when dealing with some very challenging people. The time had come to depart as writing was pretty much impossible. I put away my precious pen with care and without removing my headphones or saying anything I left the cafe without looking back.

After I had walked a little way the feeling of intense annoyance began to subside. I thought to my self, ‘Why am I annoyed?’ I had been mildly irritated earlier by some teenagers playing music on their mobiles on the bus. I cannot remember doing anything that would particilarly annoy anybody else on a bus. Was this a sign of age where little things irritated me? I started to think a little more charitably about my dining companion. He wasn’t much older than me and maybe he had had a tough life. Perhaps he had just wanted some company and someone to have a chat with him. He was certainly lacking in social skills and graces. He had probably had his fair share of rejection in the past. Something terrible might have just pushed him over the edge. I was thinking of many people I had known who had suffered mental breakdown or suffered from other mental health problems. Maybe this guy had a learning disability and I had just reinforced the many negative experiences he had already had. I ran a number of scenarios through my head including one where the guy had just arrived from Eastern Europe and knew very little English and just wanted to make contact with the locals. I felt a bit guilty and made up my mind that the next time something like that happened I would be a little more gracious and understanding of the rich spectrum of humanity and be a little more humane.

I did some shopping and cheered myself up. I had almost forgotten about the guy and was on my way back up the high street to Haymarket Bus Station when I saw an ambulance parked outside the cafe. I walked towards it and just as I arrived the crew were stretchering out the young busker I had seen by the window. A couple of the staff came outside too and a small crowd of onlookers had gathered. Someone asked one of the staff what had happened and he told them that some guy had just flipped and attacked the poor busker, who had just been sitting by the window minding his own business, and ran off. I had no doubt which guy may have flipped out. I thought about this on the bus on the way home. Maybe I had had a lucky escape but I shuddered to think that maybe by ignoring him I had triggered the impulse for him to hurt someone. This led to a whole other chain of thought about the interconnectedness of things and how karma might have a basis in fact.