“Next stop, South Bank. Running express from Beenleigh.” I know this off by heart. I’m sure the man sitting across from me does as well. I’ve seen him on the train every day for the past 2 weeks. It’s strange how you can remember people you have absolutely no reason to remember. I’ve never uttered a word to this man, yet after noticing him two days in a row I started searching for him, now he sits across from me. I don’t feel compelled to say a word to him as I feel strangely uncomfortable, almost anxious with him sitting mere centimeters from me.

The man has a college hair cut; short back and sides, a neatly pressed charcoal suit and shoes that could reflect the sun into your eyes. ‘FBI shoes’ if you’re familiar with Tom Wolfe. After taking an extremely sharp sip of coffee, I’m guessing that it was too hot and his tongue is now ‘furry’, he crosses his perfectly pleated left leg over his perfectly pleated right leg; half way through the ark of his leg the sun hits his shoes on such an angle that I’m left with a blinding after-image of a comet. From his black leather brief case he pulls out a bible, he pulls out the felt page marker and the tome opens towards the end; Revelations no doubt.

Now I understand why I’ve noticed this man and felt anxious in his presence; I’ve been reading the Koran over the past month or so. Perhaps something in his demeanour alluded to the fact of his fundamentalism; a perfect liberal. Of course besides the circumstantial evidence I have nothing to base this judgment on. I delve back into the teachings of Mohammed. Almost instantaneously I begin feeling daggers being stared between my eyes. A soft burning sensation begins to manifest on my forehead. I stop reading the pages though I don’t look up, I know he’s staring and I know why he’s staring but I feel no need to validate his look so he can dive head first into some right-wing rhetoric; I’m just not in the mood this morning. He clears his throat. Can this guy be for real? He’s baiting me? It could just be that he was too zealous with his coffee again.

Ah Karma! My faithful friend, I silently hope that he is experiencing the ‘bardo of the moment of death’ or the ‘chikhai bardo’ according to the Tibetan book of the dead, which teaches that there are three stages between death and reincarnation, these stages are referred to as ‘bardos’, I sneak a quick glance around the cabin; there seem to be no Tibetan monks on board so no body to guide him through the remaining bardos. The book of the dead stipulates that for three days after a person dies, Tibetan monks chant and burn incense so as to guide the deceased through the bardos for to become lost or deceived by the bardos is to risk an eternity without reincarnation, doomed to stumble within the aether. Regrettably my eyes meet with the man across the seat; he isn’t dying and I feel bad for wishing death upon him, though I quickly wish he were stumbling through the bardo as his eyes are tazers, leaving me speechless, breathless and frozen simultaneously. It looks as though he actually wants to leap across the seat and piously beat my skull with his article of faith. I instinctively grab my closest defence; the thick leather- bound Koran. I guess it will come down to his holy teachings versus my holy teachings. Ha! A perfect microcosm for the world at present; even down to the Buddhist teachings minding their own business in the background.

“Next stop Southbank, running express from Beenleigh”, almost indecipherable through the static unless you know what your listening for. The man with hundreds of years of Christian crusades in his eyes rises slowly. Before I can cross myself his burning coffee is scolding my face. I drop my Koran, grasp for my face and furiously rub my eyes.

I feel the shatter of 2000 years of hatred and persecution smash against my skull. I feel the blood drip down my chin and drop on to my clerical collar, then slowly down the length of my rosary beads. I reach up my shirt, grab the beads and rip them off my neck. I place them into his hands. His face is a mask of unreadable dimensions; shock, apology, fear and blood spatter. I grab him by the shoulder; he kneels by my side and I whisper hoarsely in his ear; “know your enemy”.