Fear


		FEAR: 2 Damian was headed for the dining car. He’d put on his blue jeans and a long sleeved, light blue travel shirt with two large pockets in front. The shirt dried in an hour or two and sported several breathable, netted openings for ventilation. He’d spent the whole day sitting in his apartment since boarding the California Zephyr Amtrak train at Emeryville California in the morning. He was unable to read, preoccupied with shame about his fearfulness, occasionally escaping into barely conscious fantasy—where as a boy he used to hide when his mother wasn’t looking. A slightly opened mouth exposed his ‘daydreaming’, as mother used to call it rudely pulling Damian back into the practical work of consciousness with ‘Close your mouth!’ During the night he’d slept badly waking every hour or so, and then taking a while to get back to sleep. So he was un-rested and tired as he walked down the isle avoiding looking at others to prevent eye contact. He didn’t want them to see him in this embarrassing condition. His mind was full of disappointment in himself for doing absolutely nothing useful during the ten hours he’d been on the train. He hated the tentative looks people generally gave him, painfully aware that he couldn’t hide his feelings. No matter how hard he tried to stop them they spread out all over his face. So he hid by looking down at the floor when he was in a bad mood. He wanted to impress others, which almost never happened. “Uh, mister? Will you help me? I’ve got to tell someone,” a man’s voice said. He was obviously afraid and in a hurry. Damian didn’t want to stop, and tried to keep walking after a momentary hesitation. But this man gently insisted by putting a hand on his arm, which reminded him of the woman on the train platform. “Excuse me but I think…I think maybe…” The man’s hesitation is what most caught Damian’s attention. Though he didn’t realize it at the time this person’s broken reluctant speech reminded him of himself. He couldn’t ignore someone suffering from uncertainty as he did. “Yes?” “It’s something…dangerous I think.” “What is?” Damian asked becoming alarmed. “I probably shouldn’t say anything but...” The man hesitated. “If it’s dangerous you should.” Something was waking in Damian. “Well this man…I mean his door drifted open…uh, I mean the door of his compartment. I couldn’t help but look in. He was kneeling on the floor, you know like…like…I don’t like to make trouble.” “Come on, man, what was he doing?”“ “He was praying to Allah.” “How do you know?” The man clearly did not want to answer that question. Damian guessed. He was Arab and didn’t want to advertise it. “What’s dangerous about praying?” Damian was becoming a different person. “It’s what he said.” The man hesitated as a couple sidled by the two men. “Yes?” Damian queried when the man didn’t continue after they’d passed. “Well I don’t want to alarm anyone unnecessarily. But he was saying a death prayer. I mean my Arabic isn’t great. But I distinctly heard…” The man hesitated. “That’s not something to hesitate over,” Damian insisted growing more alarmed. “Where’s his compartment?” “But are you sure we should get involved without proper authority?” “Get involved? You’ve got to be kidding. If this man…” Damian didn’t finish. This wasn’t a time for words. His best resources had been marshaled. What had only moments before been self-doubt and shame disappeared from his heart and mind. He was becoming someone else. If he’d thought about it he wouldn’t recognize this person as himself. He followed the man forward back the way he’d come away from the dining car. “I think it was this compartment,” the man said pointing. The door was closed. “I was looking for a conductor when I ran into you,” the man said. “But I couldn’t find one. But I guess we need one now to go any farther here.” In moments of crisis when Damian’s vulnerabilities were not directly exposed he was very forthright, even aggressive in how he met the world. Though he never gave himself much credit for these rare events. This was one of those moments. “Go find him if you want,” Damian replied impatiently. “But I’m not waiting to die if that’s what happening here.” Without a moment’s hesitation Damian carefully tried the door handle to see if it was locked. It wasn’t. He opened the door suddenly pretending he was entering the wrong compartment. When he saw an Arab-looking man standing over an opened suitcase he knew what he wanted to say. “Oh, I’m terribly sorry. I thought this was my com…” His apology was interrupted by the terrifying vision of what looked like plastic explosives and a detonator in the suitcase. The Arab reached for the suitcase as if to do something before he could be stopped. Damian lunged at him shoving him away, slammed the suitcase shut, and grabbed it just as the Arab pulled a four-inch knife and lunged at him. He swung the suitcase in front of him to catch the knife-thrust. It penetrated the case shoving Damian backward by the force of the man’s lunge. copyright© 2007, 2008 Don Fenn. All rights reserved.