Not Without Trouble

Trouble is with us. The smell of suffering fills our nostrils. No-one knows where these disturbing feelings come from, but they seemed to begin when those foreign people moved into our town. “Don’t come here!” we shouted when they rolled their wheels down our steep cobbled streets, “You’re not welcome, none of you!”

They ignored us, like we weren’t there. Their eyes were empty; not even dry whisperings dripped from their mouths. I resented their presence. I felt like I couldn’t respond otherwise, nor did the rest of the people in the town, so they told me. The presence of these interlopers forced up feelings of distrust from the hidden well of evil inside us. We didn’t shun them in turn, nor return to our houses or keep to ourselves in our own bit of town. No, we followed them to where they chose to rest.

My youngest son, Jo, stood by my feet when we found their refuge by the edge of the forest. “Let’s go home” he whimpered, “It’s horrible”. I knew my son’s instincts were correct, so we drifted to the edge of the crowd. Hundreds of people were now in front of us, shielding our view of the foreigners. Something felt deeply wrong. Terrible deeds were going to be committed, yet nothing could be done to prevent it. I knew I couldn’t expose the boy to this unspoken terror, so I took Jo by the sleeve in order to move him somewhere else.

“Who were they, those people?” Jo wondered, turning to me. “I don’t know” I replied, while I looked over my shoulder to see if this terrible scene still persisted. Grotesque silhouettes moved in the torchlight among the trees. Someone’s stick rose over the crowd, then dropped quickly, like the whips used by circus people to punish the lions. Shouts shot up; more men rushed over. The crowd moved like something unified, something evil. It seemed to be consuming the outsiders like they were tiny morsels of food.

I picked up my son so we could hurry home quickly. When we got there his eyes were wide, like he’d seen too much. “Don’t worry” I told him, “there’s nothing to be frightened of.” I wondered if I would need to keep lying to him. I wondered if this terrible secret would consume me, just like the evil of the crowd consumed those poor foreign people.