No Heroes
I am not a hero.
When muffled cries tear at the summer night's silence - I do not fly to the
rescue.
When two men roll around on the floor - I do not step in.
When a pissed arsehole takes the glasses of a drunken hobo and throws them on
the C-Train platform to add insult to the injury - I only slowly react.
Because I am not a hero.
I stick a finger in my book to mark the page.
The other hand I hold out, to get the brawlers attention, I say "Oy".
"Hold on citizen" would have been more heroic, but I am not a hero.
The arsehole takes a step back, measures me with his eyes.
His girlfriend shouts something from the side.
He closes in again, clenching a fist.
I step in, and I yell in his face "Fuck off".
I am not a hero, but never has my voice been more powerful.
Loud, yes, but not powerful.
And word after word I drive him off the platform.
And as the arsehole walks off into the night
my eyes glide over the hobo, who starts to wake up,
his dark-red blood starts filling the cracks of the platform concrete.
Maybe he will wake up and consider this a useful experience.
No more drugs, no more alcohol, no more calling people names.
Maybe he will not wake up ever again.
Maybe I should have reacted earlier.
Maybe I could have saved his glasses that now lie shattered on the cold concrete,
shattered like his hopes, and his skull?
Maybe - but I am not a hero.
Maybe I should have taken a picture of the arsehole to show it to the cops.
But I can't.
My right hand still holds that book, my finger still marking the page.
Holding on to the words of that unknown writer.
Not holding on, to the life of this man, who is bleeding onto the concrete.
And as people gather around the victim and the cops are being called,
I do not think about how I can help.
I just turn around, and as the C-Train draws closer,
promising relief from this madness,
my mind asks this one simple question:
How much longer before the next train home?
These are my thoughts as I hit the shower,
as I wash off the unheroic sweat of an evening of music and dance.
They are not the thoughts of a hero.
And I realize: we don't need heroes.
We need good people.
Because. Every. Voice. Counts.
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