Slightly Unsettled . . .
I saw something a little unsettling on the tram on the way home tonight, and it’s left me feeling a little unsure of myself. The tram was packed sardine-style (as usual) and I was crammed in like everyone else. Soon after we left the stop, some guy pushes past me, as if trying to get to the door for the next stop. He pauses in front of me, grabs his mobile phone, and holds it up to his face. Ok, nothing unusual about that, that’s pretty much what happens when you try to check your messages on a busy tram . . . except he put it to camera mode and took a photo of a guy sitting on the seats by the window. At first I wasn’t sure if I saw what I thought I just saw, but sure enough, he’d taken a photo then moved on past me closer to the door, shoving past everyone. By the next stop he’d gone.
This guy was tall, skinny, maybe in his fifties, wearing glasses, a baseball cap and a polo shirt with the collar up and what looked like “HIZZ” or “HI33″ in red print on the back. He seemed kind of nervous and tense, and was fiddling with the two newspapers he had rolled up in the back pockets of his jeans. The guy he took a photo of looked perhaps Lebanese, sort of vaguely Middle Eastern or possibly even from the subcontinent. He was short, young, kinda stout in a business suit, styled hair and trendy stubble, and looking pretty tired slumped in his seat.
My first thought was maybe this guy taking the photo was some kind of white-power extremist type, documenting and targeting darker-skinned people. My next thought was maybe he was from ASIO or something, which some might argue isn’t much different. Or maybe he had some kind of fetish for young, Arabic-looking guys, like how people surreptitiously take photos up women’s skirts or of girls at swimming pools. Either way, it creeped me out and the people chatting next to me seemed to notice it too as they pulled faces in his direction as he shoved past us and sounded like they were discussing what just happened (from what I could hear over my music anyway).
Yet, by the time he’d gone (and he was gone within two stops), I had this overwhelming feeling that I should have reacted or done something. I should’ve, at the time, made a point of asking him why he was taking photos of other passengers. Or maybe I should’ve told the guy sitting by the window that someone had just photographed him. I should have acted, but the situation was just so odd and a little disturbing that I felt kinda frightened that I’d do the wrong thing or I’d just imagined it or something. And now? Now I just feel this bubbling sense of unease, the kind where you just know something ain’t right . . .
