12/04/2016
From the world of OCCUPY: THE ROAD TO JOY:
MAG CATCHES A BUS
Mag’s satchel was cutting into her shoulder. As she walked briskly down the steep footpath next to Albert Park she awkwardly tried to shift its weight, shrugging it into less painful positions, but it made no difference. She finally stopped and scooped the bag, engorged on textbooks, up under her arm.
She looked at her watch and started to jog. If she didn’t speed up she’d miss her bus. The past hour had been spent in the AV library, finally finishing Michael Heneke’s Code Unknown so she could hopefully write something smart about the film in her imminently due assignment. There wasn’t much time in the day left for that to happen. Her bag was hard to hold onto and eventually she let it go, leaving it to jolt up and down painfully as she began sprinting.
Everyone else in her tutorial today had said something about the film. Mag had said nothing. She kept meaning to speak up but every time she thought of a possible contribution the subject seemed to change and the discussion turned in another direction. She should just speak up sooner, she knew, or say her piece anyway no matter what others thought. But what she had to say always seemed too unimportant to interrupt with. At least with the assignment she could think more or less at her own pace, develop her thoughts until they were worth something.
She slowed, catching her breath, rubbing her aching shoulder. The bus stop was close. There was one some way down the street, approaching gradually in the thick, late afternoon traffic.
A voice nearby rang out brightly. A girl in an orange and black uniform with a charity’s logo printed on it was asking her if she had time to talk. She was blonde, beautiful, with big, intense eyes and a broad, toothy smile.
Mag stopped walking. This was not the only thing she did, obviously, since one of the defining factors of being awkward around people is adding at least five additional steps to any simple task. The first thing she did was to walk slightly past the girl and then, feeling rude at ignoring her, to swivel round to face her. Then she almost swiveled back all the way round again, the thought striking her that she had a bus to catch and legitimately didn’t really have time to speak. But she felt ridiculous now having already stopped and swiveled once and so the second swivel turned into a momentary wobble, a slightly mangled “Hi” escaping her lips as she tried to cover the disarray she was in.
The girl didn’t seem to notice. Or pretended not to. She had a job to do and in the end it didn’t matter what she thought of Mag or what Mag thought of her. She smiled perfectly, brushed her golden hair back and greeted Mag like she’d been waiting her entire life to meet her. Mag, who actually had been waiting her entire life for a girl like this to notice her, merely nodded dumbly and allowed her captor to run through the stages of her pitch, keenly aware the bus was drifting closer.
The girl asked Mag how her day was, her eyes flicking up and down to try and ferret out details that could be turned to her advantage. It wasn’t exactly hard to work out that Mag was a student and the girl briskly started quizzing her on what she was studying, empathizing emphatically when she mentioned she had exams approaching and offering assurances that very little of her time would be taken up by what she was about to say.
The girl, who spoke with a clipped American accent, started talking about a child she’d been sponsoring who she’d gone to Cambodia to see last year, and how happy she’d been to find his village so much improved because of her. She had seen wells being dug and schoolhouses under construction. What she was saying must have been true. There were flickers of real emotion under the flat, feigned enthusiasm. But it had been repeated too often and, as the American told it, it felt second-hand. A real story recycled so often it now only slightly resembled a genuine experience.
Mag’s eyes flicked down the street, toward the bus stop. It was almost pulling up. This was stupid. She needed to get home. Was she listening out of politeness or because in some desperate, completely deluded part of her mind she imagined the girl’s phony friendliness would, Pinocchio-like, transform into something real?
She felt something inside her tighten as the time slipped by. There was nothing real about this. The girl wanted so much to be bubbly, friendly, lovely, but her words were too calculated, her smile too taut. If Mag could just have the guts to talk to someone, anyone… if she’d just say something in tutorials instead of sitting there, letting her own doubts crowd out the people she ought to be learning about and smiling at… then maybe she wouldn’t stop and miss her bus just because pretty girls pretended to want to know her.
There was even a flicker of antipathy towards the American. Everything about her was a lie. Why was she trying to manipulate Mag like this? Did this girl know how much she would have given to know her, really know her? Did she think she was fooling Mag? Why did everyone always think she was fooled?
Anger was building. She should just walk away. Right now. Just say sorry and go.
She realized she hadn’t been listening. The girl was asking her what she thought about the fact that some number of children couldn’t access clean drinking water. Or something. Mag hastily mumbled about it being bad. F**k. This was actually something important the girl was talking about. Mag sounded so stupid. Who was she to judge this person for being fake? Why was she getting so worried about catching a bus? About some stupid German film she hadn’t understood? No wonder the girl didn’t like Mag. Why would she?
The girl was asking if Mag wanted to get started, pulling a tablet out of her bag, telling her she could sign up to sponsor here and now. So easy!
Mag almost said yes. She really, really wanted to. She wanted that smile to be real, thought that if she entered her bank details now maybe it would become so.
Don’t be so stupid.
She declined, whinily apologetic. The American made a few more attempts to snare her, Mag’s refusals escalating in self-effacement each time, and finally wished her a hearty, bright goodbye.
Mag missed her bus.
As she stood at the roadside, mostly alone, she felt a sudden, unbidden urge to cry. She didn’t recognize the source of the feeling and a voice in her head told her to stop it, that there was nothing to complain about really. What was it that she had to be sad about? It was her fault she was like this. If she wanted to, she could be better. What excuse did she have for not being better?
Someone approached her. Blonde. Just like the American. She was proffering something. A flyer. Mag didn’t want to talk to anyone else, didn’t even want to meet her eye, didn’t want to be left holding some piece of paper. She turned away, pretending not to see.
Her bag strap broke.
It flopped down and tossed its contents over the asphalt. Her water bottle spilled, its lid rolling off into the gutter. She bent down, intensely aware that the woman with the flyers was still there, seeing all this. Why hadn’t she just walked past that girl, why-
The woman with the flyers bent down and started handing her the pens and papers that had spilled.
“Don’t worry. We’ve got it”. She put her flyers down next to her and snatched the water bottle lid. She touched Mag’s arm, briefly, in a manner which indicated she knew there was more a greater difficulties than this in Mag’s life right now.
The wind was starting to blow the flyers away. Mag made an attempt to grab them, muttering apologies.
“Leave them. They’re not hard to print” the woman said, gathering Mag’s stuff up in her arms.
Mag managed to catch one of the flyers before they vanished. She offered it to the woman.
“Keep it. Protest this Friday. You should come.”
She heaped the various materials into Mag’s open bag. Mag was staring. The woman caught her gaze and smiled in… recognition? Amusement? Mag didn’t know that smile.
“Thank you, um” Mag said, trying to return the mystery smile, but sure she wasn’t getting it right.
“Beth”. The woman took the flyer and wrote something on it. She handed it back, light blue eyes lingering on Mag for a moment.
“My name’s Mag” said Mag, basking in the linger.
“Come. Please. Otherwise I’ve just wasted a lot of trees”. She gestured to the last of the flyers, swirling in the wind. “You’ll be there, right?”
“Right. Yeah”. Maybe Mag was getting the smile right, because it was returned, even brighter. She looked down at the flyer. A date, a place, an image of a raised fist and… Was that a phone number she’d written down the bottom?
“Now catch your bus!” Beth laughed. “I’ll see you Friday. Text if you can’t find me, we’re expecting a big crowd!”
Mag nodded and jumped on board the one that had just pulled up, scrambling around in her mess of belongings for her HOP card, heart pounding.
“You’ll make it!” came one final call from her savior. Then the doors closed.
Mag caught a glimpse of Beth as it pulled away, that unknowable smile visible just a second more before the bus pulled away.
To find out what happens next get a ticket for OCCUPY: THE ROAD TO JOY at Te Pou 13 - 16 April at iTicket.co.nz
