Apathy.
Today was so surreal, I still shiver.
I was at the bus turnaround after school, and on a whim decided to meander to the more populated section of it, to see if there were some of my friends there whom I could talk to. There is a chain link fence about 15 feet away from the place where everyone waits for their buses.
Two boys, with not a single person looking at them, were fighting. But it was a strange fight. The aggressor had the other boy pushed up against the fence. He was twisting his shirt collar and squeezing his neck up against the fence, too. The poor boy was helpless. This wasn't a violent fight- it was a malicious fight. This slightly bigger boy was torturing the other, slowly denying him air, then letting him free for a moment. He was making threatening gestures. The threatened boy was making apologetic gestures.
I'm sure this all happened in moments, but it felt like hours. I stood there, flabbergasted. I yelled to everyone else, probably 100 or more people, "What the fuck is going on?" then, to the boys from a distance, "What the fuck are you doing to him? Leave him the fuck alone!" The people around me gave me blank, vacant stares. They looked at me like I was describing something distant and imaginary, even though this horrific event was occuring right in front of them. I ran as fast as I could to the security guards and babbled, "There's a boy over there... he's being strangled!" They looked mildly shocked and very serious. All three of them quickly jogged to the place I was pointing to.
Then I got on my bus and cried.
How could so many people have not done anything? What would have happened if I didn't say anything?
I keep asking myself these questions, and I try not to think about the answers.
I was at the bus turnaround after school, and on a whim decided to meander to the more populated section of it, to see if there were some of my friends there whom I could talk to. There is a chain link fence about 15 feet away from the place where everyone waits for their buses.
Two boys, with not a single person looking at them, were fighting. But it was a strange fight. The aggressor had the other boy pushed up against the fence. He was twisting his shirt collar and squeezing his neck up against the fence, too. The poor boy was helpless. This wasn't a violent fight- it was a malicious fight. This slightly bigger boy was torturing the other, slowly denying him air, then letting him free for a moment. He was making threatening gestures. The threatened boy was making apologetic gestures.
I'm sure this all happened in moments, but it felt like hours. I stood there, flabbergasted. I yelled to everyone else, probably 100 or more people, "What the fuck is going on?" then, to the boys from a distance, "What the fuck are you doing to him? Leave him the fuck alone!" The people around me gave me blank, vacant stares. They looked at me like I was describing something distant and imaginary, even though this horrific event was occuring right in front of them. I ran as fast as I could to the security guards and babbled, "There's a boy over there... he's being strangled!" They looked mildly shocked and very serious. All three of them quickly jogged to the place I was pointing to.
Then I got on my bus and cried.
How could so many people have not done anything? What would have happened if I didn't say anything?
I keep asking myself these questions, and I try not to think about the answers.