July 27, 2005
posted in Uncategorized
Despite being new to the city, I can’t help but feel that London is a bit different to normal at the moment; all at once defiant but also mistrustful. It seems to me that terrorist attacks heighten unity amongst us city dwellers, and they also deepen divisions and make us twitchy and irrational.
Since July 7th, every time I take the tube I can’t help but scan the people around me in a ridiculous bid to appease the nervous twitch in the base of my stomach. If someone’s about to end my life, are they likely to be reading about Marxism? Probably not; self-improvement can’t be too high on the suicide bomber agenda. Will they have sorted out their bed hair and ironed their clothes? Maybe out of habit, but again it’s unlikely. Will they be making a shopping list? And so it goes on; I’ll study the 6 faces opposite me and the 5 adjacent, and those in the doorways, and everyone else, and sometimes I’ll see someone doing something which arouses my suspicion and cranks my already overactive imagination up to nightmare warp speed.
I really hate feeling this way. I was determined not to let the attacks affect me because I want to defy the fear that bombers which to instill in us. I didn’t know any of the people who lost their lives on July 7th and despite living and working in London every day, I felt somehow detached until last Thursday’s attempted attacks, after which each time we left the house and turned the corner last weekend we were confronted by this, which made it all seem more real. I feel tremendously nervous writing this because it shows me for the coward I am, but I think I need to vent my sense of self-disappointment and anger on this one, in order that I can calmly tell myself to be more rational and just get on with it…
