London Blasts - An Encounter

It was a very normal day except that i was a bit late to the tube station... As i approached the Balham station i noticed it was a bit cramed more than usual and then i saw one of the Tube staff standing facing a crowd at the station entrance (that was completely shut down) and telling the people that there is a signal fault on the northern line and we have to find alternative routs, (what the hell is this, everytime there is a siganl fault they allow us into the station and we wait a bit longer for the trains, why aren't they letting us in.??!) i call ibrahim my housemate.... he was 10 minutes ahead of me.. he got the Train instead of the Underground from the same station "Balham"..... i check the trains entrance and it is cramed with tens of londoners trying to get a ticket or trying to get through to the platforms..... checked the screens.... delays ... delays.... and none of the trains would go to Waterloo "the heart of london"...... then no alternative but the bus..... and the bus it is.... standing at the bus station, everybody is upset and annoyed.... eveyrbody is late for work.... people make the usual phone calls to their offices to inform their colleagues they were going to be late..... i call the office as well.... and got informed others said they'd be late..... (it looks like a horrible morning.... lots of deadlines to meet..... and i'm still at the bus station).... i waited for an hour... 2 buses passed by... fully packed.... first bus stopped but allowed only 2 people on board..... the second one did not even stop..... ( it seems the bus is not an option at the moment.... better head back to the station ) ... walking back to the tube station.... oh God... all cleared.... station opened again..... so i enter the station ..... take the escalators down to the plarform... the platfrom is packed ..... the electronic sign saying 2 trais r coming... everybody is cursing the underground system..... (thinking of the few trades to be missed, the deadlines to be compromised, the bonus to be wasted)..... suddenly... another announcement .... "no northern line service today..... please leave the station immediately"..... cursing... shouting...... people rushing again as they all realise they are thinking of the same thing ...... "the trains".... if the underground is not working the trains are the second best options all the time.....
we rush towards the train platform entrance..... all with bitterness towards the station staff... they stop us for a while... afterwards.. they let us in...... still no trains to waterloo..... trains going only to victoria..... i can just take the train to victoria and then take the tube to waterloo...... i got into the train with some others until it was completely packed..... then the usual stuff happened.... few started talking... few reading and few kissing..... finally we arrived vitoria after around 20 minutes in the train.....
victoria station.... huge.... busy..... in total chaos..... i got a phone call from sherif my housemate..... he stayed at home..... he spoke of some kind of explosions..... somethnig that has to do with "power surge" that caused fire in a tube station.... as i was talking to him on the fone.... i checked the victoria underground station.... it is closed...... sherif confirms...... the underground is entirely closed...... i looked around... confusion everywhere...... went outside the station... disasterous..... people, buses, cars, all occupying a very little space in front of the station.... all cramed in a very tight area in a "cario style" chaos..... so much not like london......
in the middle of all that i saw a bus with "waterloo" on its front.... i got in it... asked the driver if he is still going to waterloo.. he confirmed..... the bus was not that full though there were lots of people outside the station waiting to go to central london..... ("lucky me" i thought... but wait a sec... why didn't they take the buses?) ..... in the bus..... street is jammed still.... called sherif... he said there were explosions in variuos tube stations and then he mentioned an bomb on a bus..... a bus!!!..... it wa\sn't confirmed though..... i stare at the people around me..... should i tell them what sherif has just said?? .... not a good idea i thought... there is no need to frighten anybody...... a guy beside me started speeking to us.... he was wondering if we knew what was happening.... he turned out to be a reporter with financial times..... a lady beside him spoke about explosions in the tube..... (will she mention buses?) ..... we all start looking at eachother and ask each other where we r heading..... (will we get there?).... we start chatting and everything seems normal when a lady got a phone call and she says something about a bomb on a bus..... (shoudl i leave the bus?)..... we were approaching waterloo bridge...... about to get to the station but it was so crowded.... the bus stopped and the lady and few other left..... i stayed.... don't know why but i stayed..... it's probably a rumor about the bus just like the "power surge" ...... few minutes later...... the driver gets a message from teh central station .... we all heard the message very clearly..... "park your coach immediately, passengers should leave the bus at once, check if there are strange devices on board"..... the message was very clear..... we all looked at each other and started laughing..... (was it disbelief? or maybe a sudden realization of what could happen to us?).... the driver kept on driving.... we were starting to realise slowly our situation.... i started to realise that it could very well be the end..... just like it was the end of some others who took another bus confidently and felt very lucky they were not caught up in the tube...... and they just very simply ceased to exist in a fraction of a second.....with all their dreams, hopes and fears....
(will it explode? i kept thinking..... will it happen?..... will i be just one the images u see everyday on ur tv screen? will i just be another bloody piece of flesh mixed with some metal debrie thrown on the ground? will people know that there is a lot more behind me than just a rotten body? then i wondered... do i realise and feel those images on tv? do they transcend their "image" format in my mind to their "human" form?)..... brain squeezed...... others started to panic..... i felt cold..... i didn't want to die..... no no... i don't mind dying... it's a fact of life.... i didn't want to die in this way.... unnoticed.... unidentified...... just died in a blast!..... just a piece of flesh to be photographed from different angles and published in different newspapers without any care for my dreams, hopes, fears, ideas.....
but i had to reach a resolve.... at least until i get off the bus..... i don't care..... if it has to happen this way then i don't mind..... i didn't have a choice after all......
we left the bus at waterloo..... complete disorder everywhere..... have to cross the bridge to get to work.... a helicopter is flying over traflagar square..... a policeman with a machine gun right beside me.... (will it be a battlefield?)...... didn't want to go through the main streets..... preferred to get to work through the park..... for the first time since the morning things seemed in order..... the trees where they r...... doves seem not to be disturbed..... only thing left of the outside chaos is the police, ambulance and emergency sirens......

got to work..... everything seems perfectly ok... people a bit late.... but "business as usual"... deadlines not changed.... people trading... discussing.... arguing.... as if nothing happened...... "business as usual" is the rule and it reins as long as u r still breathing..... only a single interruption when blair delievered his speech..... afterwhich things returned to normal again.... except for some looks i got.... or some looks i thought i got.... (where they looks of wonder? or blame? or maybe questioning? or just my imagination and reaction to the situation? ... or maybe the "bat7a" on the head that i might have developed for being arab or maybe for being moslem... i don't know..... )

here i am..... stuck in central london still.... heard of some abuses of some arab looking pedestrians...... one options seems available to go home... the bus.... again..... (lucky me... lucky me)