He looked a
moment at his "unsteadfast footing," then let his gaze wander to the
swirling water of the stream racing madly beneath his feet. A piece of dancing
driftwood caught his attention and his eyes followed it down the current. How
slowly it appeared to move! What a sluggish stream! Ambrose Pierce Occurrence at
Owl Creek Bridge
It was so cliché, but all I wanted
after two weeks in Belfast was some fish and chips. Two weeks and not one
fish fry. It could have been the six or so pints at Lavery’s that also made
some greasy food a good idea before we made our way back to our flat.
As Erin and
I walked into the shop, the sounds of Simple Minds Belfast Child intertwined
with the harsh accents of those also attempting to quell the Guinness from
their nights. I chuckled to myself because it was that song that I listened to
over and over and over while writing my screen play. And there I was, in
Belfast, in a chip shop, listening to that song.
My mind
also wandered to the lovely lad that I’d been seeing for the past week. It was
nice to be seeing someone taller than me, that never happens. As my mind
wandered between Simple Minds, Brendan, and the Guinness, the counter girl was
pretty fed up with me.
It was the
best fish and chip I had ever eaten to that point in my life. Erin and I
chatted about the night and about our work that had to be done the next day. We
were both interning at a Northern Ireland civil rights office. We were both two
naïve girls who were drawn to Northern Ireland and its strife. We were going to
save the world and, of course, end 800 years of oppression.
Happy with
our greasy consumption and ready for some sleep, we left the shop and headed
towards our flat. Maybe we were feeling too confident, forgot where we were,
recessed several incidents over the past two weeks into a corner of our mind,
or were let our guard down. We both sensed it quickly when we turned down our
block.
Our street,
mind you, was only one block. However, when we turned the corner and felt the
presence of two men following us, the one block became the length of ten
football field plus the distance to the moon. The pin prickly feeling kicked in
as we both agreed in whisper to walk faster and don’t look back.
They walked
faster.
I could
only hear the sound of feet and breathing. The entire city of Belfast had
seemingly melted away. The only block that existed was this block and seemed to
take forever to get even a few feet. My mind wandered but everything around me
slowed down.
It still
seems like this took an hour to run to my door. It was only about 30 seconds
and now we were running. They too were running behind us. They did not yell one
thing the entire time and neither did we.
I fumbled
for my keys, but this too felt as if my body was in slow motion. Up the steps
and I prayed I could unlock the door before they reached us. Damn it. I dropped
the keys, and while still kneeling after picking them up, I unlocked the door. Erin and I feel in and then propped ourselves against it. The second door, with
the key code was in front of us, but we didn’t want to move.
They
slammed against the door. “We know you’re in there.” They banged their fists
against the door over and over. We were afraid to breathe. My mind finally
caught up to my body and I realized how scared I really was as every possible
scenario flooded my brain as we were caught between two doors.
In two
weeks, I had been chased, hit with a whiskey bottle crossing the street, fled
three bars because of bomb threats, almost walked right into the barrel of a
soldier’s gun as he crouched in a crevice in a bridge, was stranded because
riots closed roads, thought we were going to get thrown into the bonfires on
July 11th had it not been for an angel, and the fact that there was
a pledge to kill Catholics. Why not top it off with torture, assault, or who
knows what else.
It was our
mistake.
Everyone knows
everyone in Belfast. They know your comings and goings. Who you are. Where you
come from. They know who you work for. We put ourselves in the position of
letting our guard down. We walked the same path every day. We walked the same
path through centuries of lines drawn in the sand. We worked for the minority.
Silence. We
both eyed the second door. I knew they would be able to see me if we moved so
it had to be quick. What was the code?
Sure enough
as soon as the beeps of me entering numbers began, the banging began again.
Same thing. We fell in and held the door shut with our bodies, pretty certain
we would stay there until morning when someone else in the flat went to work. We
quickly assessed that they couldn’t get in any other way and felt a little more
relaxed to move away from the door. Looking back, the funny thing was, we never
mentioned what had just happened.
From that
night on, we always walked different routes. We never walked without a local
escort (or Brendan). We never, ever talked about what could have happened in
the violent summer of 2001 in Belfast.
To this
day, I dread when people walk too close behind me when it is not warranted. It
takes me back to the time between those two doors when the world seemed to slow
down and melt away except for our street in East Belfast.
