Wednesday 7 September 2016

The raid

Audio to follow
There are always sirens on a hot afternoon in Prague, so I didn’t think too much of the wailing noises coming from all directions. I just sat hunched over my phone hoping that no old lady would get on the tram and whack me with her walking stick, demanding I vacate my seat for her. Mind you, I’m not in the first spring of youth these days, so maybe the old ladies with the sticks would rap some other poor unsuspecting Facebook user on the noggin. 
The tram rattled through Zizkov allowing me to ignore the haunts of a previous incarnation of myself that roamed these same dirty streets and drank in the dingy pubs over twenty years ago. Would I recognise that boy now if I bumped into him? I guess I’ve changed a little since then, but I wouldn’t mind saying hello if he was about.Might be fun to share a pint in U Dudaku or U Radnice. 
The force with which the driver hit the brakes sent me flying forward out of my reverie and back into the twenty-first-century. I only avoided colliding with the guy in front of me because he had flown forward too. I wonder what decade he’d come back from.
I looked around to see that the sirens had been for us. There was a police car slanting across the tracks in front only centimetres away from the tram’s front bumper. Behind us, a cop car got up close and personal with two more drawing up parallel. Police in combat gear were emerging and taking position, their guns trained on the tram, the veins straining in their necks. Inside the passengers looked around, wondering who the police are looking for. No one looks like an arch villain, but what do the bad guys look like these days? The sun beat through the window bringing a bead of sweat to my brow as I watched and waited, my last day in Prague, I was hoping it wasn't my last day full stop.
Without an obvious signal, the doors opened and the police were swarming the tram, moving at a jerky, nervous pace. The reminded me of cabin crew, checking our seat belts were fastened and our armrests down while examining  our  startled faces and exploring their memories, looking for a match. 
Whoever the suspect was, he or she was keeping a poker face, there were no darts for the door or going down in a blaze of bullets. There wasn't even a meek surrender. Each of us sat stock still, hoping it wouldn’t be us they pulled out. Why do police make me feel guilty? Of course, they weren’t looking for me, yeah I've jaywalked a few times, but  that's hardly a police raid type offence. But still, I was ready to wave the white flag, confess my sins. But the officers only gave me a cursory glance. I obviously didn’t fit the description. Thirty seconds later they left empty handed, the doors closed, the driver rang his bell and off we went, business as normal.
“Ty vole,” the man in front of me said. “the idiots got the wrong tram.”

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