The number 24 bus is not known in the records of classical legend as the
site of miracles. Nobody on the number 24 bus route has ever turned water
into wine (although later at night cans of Fosters have been seen to turn
to urine) and rarely have moving statues been seen occupying the seats
reserved for the elderly and pregnant women.
No, it was certainly no miracle which happened last Monday morning; teams
of Vatican investigators will not be treading their way from Rome to
Mornington Crescent (for it was there that it happened) to record the
mysterious happening. There are no miracles; it was no miracle. It was
simply a slightly extraordinary event.
When I say extraordinary I am not alluding to those strange and
semi-credible happenings so frequently found within the dull, unwanted
pages of �Readers Digest� (publisher: the CIA). There you will find
stories of women who didn't know they were pregnant and then one day,
while enjoying a casual game of beach volleyball, gave birth to triplets,
each of a different ethnic background. Or men who fell from fifty-storey
skyscrapers on to a passing bus in which was sitting their long-lost twin.
Extraordinary! Incredible is the concept which springs to mind. Presumably
the CIA use �Readers Digest� as a sort of testing ground for human
gullibility. The theory must be that if they believe it in the �Readers
Digest�, why not try it out on the suckers in the rigged Latin American
election? So let's be clear about this: we are talking neither of miracles
nor stories of the strange and mysterious. All that happened on the 24 bus
last Monday was a mildly noteworthy set of circumstances.
I had just returned from a weekend speaking trip to Glasgow. The
exhaustion of overnight travel and the joyful memory of a fraternal visit
fought in my mind as I made my weary way to the job. Robotically, from
shower to letterbox, right shoe on and then left shoe, up the street to
the bus stop, the drill was performed and the miserable queue of
job-seekers who had sought, found and were fed up was waiting as usual.
The bus came. And then . . .
It began when a woman in the bus queue, carrying a particularly bulky
suitcase, stooped to lift it only to find herself pounced upon by two men
who insisted upon helping her carry it on. That was kind. Then came a boy
who discovered that he was ten pence short on the fare. The woman with the
case took out ten pence and paid it. "I'll pay you back, missus," said the
boy. "Pay me when you win the lottery, love," she replied.
The boy's fumbling for his coin had made the bus a few seconds late and,
as it moved off, along ran a man clearly anxious to get on. The driver
stopped, opened the doors and smiled at the latecomer. "That was decent of
you," said the man. "You're more than welcome, mate," said the driver. "I
hope you'd do the same for me."
It was at that point that the blind man asked the best stop to get off for
University College Hospital. A debate occurred. Passengers vied with one
another to be more helpful. "Look," said the girl in a leather jacket who
had recently been reading the �Sun�, "don't you worry about the best stop;
I work only a few streets from there and it won't take me five minutes to
walk you to exactly where you want to go."
The passengers approved. The woman with the suitcase passed around wine
gums. We only took as many as we needed. (I took none.) A couple of Dutch
tourists got on and discovered they were going the wrong way for Camden
market. But an old man suggested another market where things were cheaper
and you could get musical Christmas cards at half price.
Whatever musical Christmas cards are, the Dutch couple seemed happy and
were soon sharing in the wine gums. The boy offered to show them round his
school (they were teachers it turned out) and the blind man told a story
of how he had once taken the day off school to go to a Beatles concert. At
which point the bus driver asked if anyone would mind if he played an old
Beatles tape which his friend had made for him. We all assented. Quite a
few sang.
It felt like a trip to the seaside. It felt like every day and every
journey and every destination should be like this, or, at least, less like
it usually is. It felt as if we were a convoy of travelling pups having a
lick at our own humanity. It tasted good.
So no miracle occurred. It was probably hardly worthy of note. But it
happened and probably it happens much more often than is recorded. People
were decent. For the few minutes of that journey on that bus we all
overcame the tremendous temptations of this system to push and shove and
trample upon one another and act inhumanly, all of which happens daily in
the name of "healthy competition".
And then that competitive indecency is paraded before us in the name of
"human nature", as if we are not pups but rotweilers. And so humans are
taught to hate themselves � to put muzzles upon themselves lest they bite.
But in truth we are happier co-operating than biting or fighting. It was
co-operation which allowed the species to survive, after all.
And alienated as the profit system makes us from the reality of our
species, there are moments which are not miracles � moments when mothers
feed their babies and children play in the park and the elderly are
crossed over busy roads and one person simply smiles at another without a
sinister motive � when humanity triumphs over capitalism.
These are not miracles or incredible events. They are merely spectres of
what could be if we were to live as we might live.
jt
www.worldsocialism.org
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