Friday 4 March 2011

Non-Travel: Just a thought

Just some musings that hit me today, not a travel blog post, so ignore if you wish.

***

I always wondered about dropping them off. Sometimes it would be a young girl, and I would watch them walk away, sometimes staggering from too much alcohol, and I would be riddled with guilt before I quietly pressed my foot down on the pedal.

I wondered if they were ever attacked, masked men jumping from the darkness like cobras, striking and seizing their helpless prey. If they were, was it my fault? Should I have waited, watched, seen if they had walked to safety?

And if I had, and if they had been, should I have leapt through the door, running to their aid like a self pompous, ego inflated batman? Or would I have averted my eyes, told myself it wasn't my business, shoved the lever into gear and screeched the tyres.

And now, could I tell? Would I need to be put through that torture in order to measure my response? Words are so hollow here... Is it wrong that I wish for some poor young teenager be attacked just to see what I would do?  The utter limit of selfishness. The very act of wishing it stains my hands like blood, and I feel like Lady Macbeth, when I've done nothing wrong at all.

So sometimes I would watch, I would wait, and be accused of stalking the young lady. How can I win? Do I really want to win?

And then, irony struck, I was so worried about the women, so focused on how they could be hurt, that it was a man who was mugged. I saw it in the paper, recognised the face. Stabbed for a mobile phone. And what did I do? Did I wait? Did I watch?

So perhaps I looked too deeply, perhaps I should just watch them all, perhaps I should watch none. How can driving a taxi be so complicated?

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