21st Century Paranoia

I went to church on a nice Sunday morning sometime late last year;  I was looking forward to an uplifting sermon as usual and I didn’t expect anything would happen to make me want to rush out of church. Anyway I found a seat not exactly in front of the pulpit but close enough to it for me. Then this guy who was probably in his early 20’s, comes and sits next to me; I really didn’t think anything of it at the time, after all the church hall is a public space. Then he leaned towards me and asked “which service is this and what time does it end?” I answered him politely enough, vaguely assuming he was a first timer in church and was trying to choose a suitable service (the church runs 4 services on Sunday).  

My alarm bells started ringing when he told me that he had to step out and he casually left his small knapsack on his seat and walked away! I looked at the package and my alarm grew with every step he took towards the exit. Suddenly, his innocuous question took on a new meaning; was he trying to decide the best time to set ‘it’ off?  I was thinking to myself “will I have enough time to make a run for it?” My sensible voice harshly told me not to be silly and unnecessarily fanciful. I’ve had a panic attack before but that was on a lift that was stuck between floors!  I certainly never expected to have one in church. I also considered the spiritual aspect; I’m not supposed to be afraid in the House of God…am I, what about faith? Anyway each minute that he was away seemed like an hour and my eyes were glued to that bag as if the sheer fact of my having it within my sight would render it harmless. I tried to pray but honestly I couldn’t put my thoughts together. Fear is a terrible emotion and aloneness in fear is worse. I was the only one in church who was afraid that I might be sitting next to a bomb; I was the only person the mysterious young man had spoken to. So I was the only one left analyzing his question and wondering if I was just being silly.  I decided to voice my fear  thereby demystifying it so I walked up to an usher and explained what had transpired, the usher didn’t seem too bothered though he walked over to look at my ‘mysterious package’ and said something vague that I can't remember now.

In all this time, the young man was nowhere to be found,  honestly, I thought of simply walking out of the service and just going home where I would be ‘safe’ but I took the less radical option of moving as far away as possible from the ‘package’; I sat right next to one of the exits and I don’t think I heard a word of that sermon. I stayed till the very end because fear is a bully that feeds on acquiescence to its dictates, so staying put was my puny act of defiance.

Till this day, I still don’t know why I was so frightened; maybe it was all the sensational news reporting plus my overactive imagination that kicked in on that day. The fact that you’re reading this means there was no bomb or any untoward event on that Sunday. The most significant revelation I got  that day was that no one is immune from terror no matter how far removed we are from the domain of the terrorists. If I’d had this same experience a couple of years ago, I wouldn’t have thought anything of it; in fact I may have gone the extra mile of safeguarding the young man’s property. I realised that the objective of terrorism is to stop people from living their lives and the only way to conquer terror is to look it in the face and just go on living.

I had just suffered from a bout of 21^st century paranoia; it wasn’t pleasant but it was liberating.