I was sitting in my chair waiting for the hallway in to the toilets clear. Joe was trying to convince someone, who was being polite, to go first so I could get in. It was marked as accessible but it was very, very, small with little room to maneuver. And I had to PEE. The fellow finally relented, seemed to now be a bit embarrassed that his politeness was a barrier for my entrance. He nodded to me, I nodded back. It was all good.
I reached down and undid the breaks on my chair and was about to push in.
Let me stop here and tell you where I was sitting. I was right outside the bathroom facing the door. This put me a wee bit into a large corridor. I certainly wasn’t blocking anyone. People had been flowing by me the whole time, most choosing to give me more space than I needed. That wasn’t a problem because it was, as I said, a wide corridor.
But then suddenly, a fellow chose to walk towards me and directly behind me. No problem. I could wait for a few seconds longer.
struck me.
He struck me.
Two punches, hard, on my back.
He spoke.
“Don’t back up!” As if he figured that I was going to back into him. I had been stationary the whole time, I had seen him coming.
But, I didn’t think I was in danger.
But he struck me.
This only took seconds and he was gone, down a busy to the point of teeming, corridor.
The shock, and the pain, of being hit silenced me for a moment. He had hit me hard, really hard, and he’d hit me intentionally.
He walked towards me to strike me.
It was purposeful.
And I am left to figure how how to incorporate this into my world view, into my sense of safety outside the door of my house.
I am left with dealing with the fact of the punches.
There’s furniture in my head that needs to be moved. Work I don’t want to do, but work I have to do.
He hit me.
