The Imaginary Bus: Khalo Who Foresaw His Own Death in a Dream — Volume One
Silence had settled over the bus.
Even Coco was quiet and, for once, wasn’t making a fuss for attention.
The rain tapped softly on the window, and the wipers went on with their repetitive work: once to the right, once to the left.
The woman in red evidently couldn’t bear so much silence.
She leant forwards a little and spoke with that familiar mischief, which always seemed to conceal something mysterious.
— You know, this bloody love brings something else with it.
— What’s it brought now? I thought we’d let it off the bus.
She laughed.
— Fear.
I looked at her.
— One of the worst kinds is the fear of losing the relationship. I still don’t know where that fear comes from. Suddenly there it is, sitting in a corner of your mind, slowly turning your life dark.
She paused.
— Khalo, what do you think about fear and being afraid?
I was quiet for a few moments.
— Before we get to fear, I’ve still got some unfinished business with love.
The woman in red laughed.
— Didn’t you say we’d let it off?
— We did, but it left a suitcase behind.
Lena, who had been looking outside, turned round.
— I still want to sum up the difference between love and dependence. What is the difference, exactly? Lots of people wake up one day and realise they have become dependent on a partner, without knowing where love ended and dependence began.
Both women fell silent.
It was as if they had made a competition of forcing me to go on.
— Perhaps the real question is: does love itself create dependence? And if it does, how can we tell when that dependence is natural and when it is slowly swallowing us?
The woman in red watched me out of the corner of her eye.
Lena listened thoughtfully, glancing at her from time to time.
— It’s very easy to mistake emotional dependence for love, because both can begin with affection, closeness and the wish to be near someone.
I shifted my hands on the wheel.
— The difference appears when you look at what the relationship does to you.
— What do you mean? asked the woman in red.
— If there’s trust, respect, calm and room to grow; if two people love each other yet keep their own identities, friends, interests and independence, you could say the relationship is moving in a healthier direction.
— Closeness without disappearing into the other person, said Lena.
— Exactly.
I paused.
— But strong dependence often shows itself through fear: fear of loss, a constant need for reassurance, jealousy, control, anxiety when the other person is slow to answer the phone, or the thought that ‘without them, I’ll never be happy again’.
The woman in red turned from me to the window.
— Perhaps we need to ask ourselves a few simple questions now and then.
— Such as? asked Lena.
— When they’re not beside me, do I still feel I have worth?
— Does their presence bring me peace, or only increase my fear of losing them?
— Have I grown in this relationship, or have I slowly forgotten myself?
— Those aren’t simple questions, the woman in red said quietly.
— No. Only short ones.
The donkey raised his head a little in the corner of the bus.
— Don’t worry. This isn’t an exam.
He lowered his head again.
Even Coco couldn’t be bothered to look at us.
— In short, love isn’t meant to imprison someone. If a relationship keeps diminishing your self-respect, peace and freedom, you need to stop and look at what’s happening.
— So love should make a person freer?
— At least it shouldn’t make them smaller.
— And you shouldn’t have to erase yourself from life to keep a relationship, Lena added.
I looked at her.
— Exactly. As we said: love means growing alongside each other, not being unable to be yourself without the other person.
I paused.
— I think that’s the heart of it. If you have nothing to add, we can turn to fear now, the creature that apparently boarded without a ticket.
This time the woman in red did not laugh.
She was quiet for a few seconds, then said:
— Several things happened to me all at once, and they turned into a fear I didn’t recognise. Believe me, it darkened my life.
Her voice grew softer.
— It even affected my relationship. That friend stepped back a little. He said he was doing it for both our peace of mind.
Lena listened without joining in.
I didn’t answer straight away either.
Some admissions don’t need a quick reply.
— Fear is complicated, I said at last. — If we get into it, we may be stuck on this bus for days.
— Do we have a destination? asked the woman in red.
— No, but sooner or later the donkey will want hay.
He brayed at once.
— See? Material concerns always bring philosophy back down to earth.
Lena laughed.
— But seriously, there’s one thing we need to be clear about before anything else: fear isn’t a natural enemy of human beings.
— What do you mean?
— Without it, our ancestors would probably have become some other animals’ dinner rather quickly.
— So fear has a protective purpose, said Lena.
— Exactly. Psychologically, fear works as an alarm system. When the brain senses a possible danger, the body prepares itself: the heart beats faster, breathing changes, muscles tense and attention narrows towards the threat. The body says: fight, run away, or sometimes freeze and don’t move.
— But my problem is that sometimes there is no danger, yet the fear is there.
— That’s where it gets complicated.
The wiper swept across the glass.
— The brain doesn’t always wait for courtroom evidence. Sometimes the possibility of danger is enough. An earlier experience, a separation, an accident, a humiliation, bad news or even months of unrelenting pressure can leave the alarm system too sensitive.
— Like a burglar alarm that goes off when a cat walks past, said Lena.
— I couldn’t have put it better.
— So you might know something isn’t dangerous, but your body won’t accept it?
— Yes. Your mind can say, ‘Nothing has happened,’ and your body can answer, ‘I don’t trust you. I sensed danger.’
We sat quietly for a little while.
Then I said:
— But fear doesn’t exist only inside the brain.
Lena turned completely towards me this time.
I knew this was her territory.
— We live in society. Our fears have histories and surroundings too.
— Housing, work, money, migration, war, discrimination, insecurity… Lena said.
— Exactly.
— So society can frighten people too? asked the woman in red.
— More than that, said Lena. — Sometimes social life is organised so that fear becomes part of everyday living.
I went on:
— Someone who doesn’t know how they’ll pay next month’s rent, someone afraid of losing their job, someone who has no idea what tomorrow’s law or decision might do to their life, or a migrant who doesn’t feel safe: their fear isn’t just a product of their imagination.
— So we can’t tell everyone simply to ‘think positive’.
— If the landlord is standing over you, positive thinking won’t pay the rent.
Lena laughed.
— And that’s why a social view matters.
— Yes. If we reduce every fear to an individual’s psychology, we may miss the real problem.
A little farther on, the bus stopped at a red light.
— From a Marxist perspective, it becomes more interesting still.
— At last, said the woman in red.
— What did you expect? I’m the driver, but I have my own route.
Lena smiled.
— A materialist view doesn’t try to understand a person apart from the real conditions of their life. Our feelings aren’t produced in a vacuum. The kind of work we do, our income, financial security, relations of power, position in society and ability to control our own lives can all affect fear.
— So capitalism produces fear?
— I wouldn’t put it as simply as blaming every fear on capitalism and closing the case.
Lena laughed.
— People feared death, illness, nature, separation and the unknown thousands of years before capitalism. But every social system can create or intensify its own forms of insecurity.
The light turned green.
The bus moved on.
— When someone’s life depends heavily on selling their labour, when losing a job can mean losing a home and their safety, when competition is constant or they feel little control over their circumstances, fear isn’t merely an individual reaction. It has a social setting too.
— And alienation comes into it here, said Lena.
The woman in red looked at her.
— How?
— Someone may feel they aren’t running their own life. Their work, their time and much of their day don’t belong to them.
— And when people feel they have little control over their lives, their sense of insecurity can grow, I said.
— So fear is both personal and social?
— And sometimes political.
I paused.
— Power doesn’t always work through direct force. Fear can be used as an instrument of power too: fear of being sacked, rejected or impoverished; fear of speaking out or being different.
— But we mustn’t turn every individual’s fear into politics, said Lena.
— True. Just as we shouldn’t treat every fear as only a matter of the person’s brain or mind.
— So to understand a fear, you have to find out where it came from, said the woman in red.
— Exactly.
— Is there a real danger?
— Is the body repeating the memory of an old danger?
— Is the relationship unsafe?
— Are social conditions putting the person under pressure?
— Or are several of these things happening at once?
— What if the person doesn’t know either?
— Then they need to find out, slowly. Without blame.
At that moment Coco, apparently tired of philosophy and psychology, barked several times, got up and leapt straight into the woman in red’s arms.
He began fussing for attention.
She held him.
— At least somebody here isn’t afraid of intimacy.
— Don’t be too sure. If you don’t give him a biscuit, he’ll turn every theory of attachment against you within five minutes.
Lena laughed.
The donkey huddled in a corner and wasn’t even looking outside.
The woman in red stroked Coco’s head, then looked at me.
— Khalo, all this has left me with one question.
— Ask away.
— If fear is there to protect us, how can we tell when it’s protecting us and when it has become a prison itself?
For a moment I said nothing.
Even Lena waited for my answer this time.
I looked at the rainy street.
— I think that question needs an episode of its own.
The donkey brayed from the back of the bus.
— Yes, I know. You were against dragging out the discussion from the start.
The woman in red laughed.
But this time her smile quickly faded.
The bus went on through the wet streets of London.
Fear had come with us, though nobody had invited it.
And apparently it had no intention of getting off at the next stop.
To be continued…
Naser Kamali
London, a rainy night, in my cosy little room.
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