I'm still shaken from Wednesday evening's escapade, although at least it'll keep me from staying at work too late.
My last shuttle for the metro leaves at 8pm, and I saw it race by from way off down a perpendicular road, biting my lip at my inability to stop a train of thought and save it for when I get in in the morning.
So I walked. All proud that I'd remembered this turn and that one, recognized this rotten-fruit stand and...
...waitasec, ROTTEN fruit in France?
Hey, these all look like crackhouses...
...hey, why are these three large and very rank men walking so close to me...
And then they were upon me, speaking with thick banlieue accents and touching my hair, my ass, grasping my arm to pull me in this direction, that one...
And when I started yelling it only pulled them closer, their breath a mind-freezing poison on my face.
When one of them tried to brush my cheek, I lost it. My fist swung out and glanced his eye and cheek, and without thinking my elbow was already coming down, thudding into his sternum, sharp and harder than I've ever hit anyone in a very long time.
The confusion when he fell to his knees, gasping for breath and yelling obscenities all at once, his thugs stopped beside him and I kept on my way, head down this time and heading as fast as I could for the metro, trying not to break down and run, never glancing behind me.
I shivered the hour-long ride home, brain still fogged and wondering what I'd done, what crimes I'd broken, how I could hit someone like that and see them go down so fast...
...it has been so many years since even the nightmares of the streets haven't made their nightly visit, and here I am, shoes with heels and ironed clothes without a single hole in them, and it's the same thing all over again.
Only this time, I didn't think I was asking for it.
I want to colour my hair a deep muddy brown, be a mouse for a while.
Instead, I am watching the clock and making sure I never miss a shuttle.
And the next-door neighbour's little boy has upped his screaming routine; it's not just six in the morning anymore; now it's three am and six am and just a little bit more at seven thirty to make sure that no one is getting any extra sleep.
And for the first ten minutes of his hour-long shreaking cavalcade, I wonder "why isn't anyone answering him? how can they hear him scream with so much pain without saying a word?" and then I look out my window to make sure that it isn't a homeless boy screaming for his father, and then I'm angry. Angry at the negligence of parisian parents in general, angry that I am sick to my stomach with his heart-rending screams that echo in the courtyard by my pillow, angry at him for my lack of sleep all week, angry at myself for being able to hate a little boy.
There are times when things are too still in the chill September air, when I am sick and my stomach plays circus with me.
Right now, waiting for that meeting, waiting for Achmed to show up, this is just such a moment.
And there's no coffee.
(but I have two appointments to visit appartments tomorrow...)