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The other day I was on the bus, minding my own business. I was reading my book, and my earphones were in, and I was sitting quietly, not bothering anyone. Or so I thought.

I looked to my right, at one point, and a guy, standing in the middle of the aisle, just past the hinge of the jointed bus, was staring at me. Not just staring at me like, looking at me in the absence of something else to look at, but staring at me like he hated me, and wanted to "make something of it", so to speak.

I thought, "Huh. That's weird," and continued to read. I glanced over a few moments later, and he was still doing it. Staring right at me, with this hateful, raging look on his face.

The guy was beefy, fat but not weak looking, with a big head like a high school bully. Other than the fact that he was glaring at me like a crazy person, he looked reasonably normal. I looked back towards him, thinking maybe it was just his beady little eyes, that I was mistaken as to where he was focusing.

Nope. He was looking right at me. Still. As far as I knew, he hadn't turned away in the last 5 minutes. I did a little systems check: was I doing anything particularly obnoxious? My bag was out of the way. My music wasn't too loud. My book (I checked again, to make sure) a nice hardcover from Chapters, could hardly be considered offensive... This guy was definitely crazy.

So I decided well, when crazy guy attacks me, I don't want to be unprepared. I put away my book, my earphones, etc. I gave my neck a quick stretch, fixed my clothes and turned up the reaction time / physical activity preparedness level. Ok, crazy person. Let's do this.

I turned to stare back at him, but to my surprise, he had looked away. Now he was mumbling to himself, and staring into the mass of people ahead of him. The bus was full.

Then he raised his hand, pointed his fist towards the crowded aisle, and started to make gun noises. "Bang. Bang. Bang." His fist was closed, not in the usual finger-extended-as-if-pulling-the-trigger position, and his gun sounds were slightly childish, too much muffled explosion, not enough sharp report. But still, however poorly implemented, he still stood there and in his imagination angrily gunned down the completely innocent crowd. Not only that, but mumbling throughout, though I could only catch fragments of "murder, fuck, innocent, deserve".

Then he turned around, and got off at the next stop. I caught a woman's eye, near where he'd been standing. Wide eyed and clearly distraught. I gave her a look like "wtf was that?", kinda joke it off, you know? But even I didn't find it particularly funny. That dude had some serious, hair raising issues!

Speaking of crazy:

That's some fine police work there, Lou!

Hey, thanks chief!

sarah, 2009-08-11, 04:54:05 I've been wary of public transit ever since the whole beheading thing. Good to see you're on your toes though, ready to defend yourself and your helpless co-riders.

Aunt Joan, 2009-08-11, 10:28:26 Wow scary there are so many nutsy people these days shooting others, good thing he was only pretneding