Volcano
Volcano Pai Jan 2023
This is a rewritten extract of the larger story MSP Mostly Teflon. It was fun to play with.
A mountain of indignation rose steadily inside me.
Acrimony flowing higher singeing my throat, coating my tongue with ash.
‘What’s in my bag?’ What kind of an inane question is that? How do you even answer that? ‘My...stuff?’ Should I list it alphabetically, by size, by weight, by how attached to it I am? The shear bombastity, how it’s even a question? Especially from a failed nightclub bouncer in an ill fitting security uniform looming over me in a pathetic attempt to assert his cherished Eric Cartmanesque ‘Authoritah’, it would be funny except for the stench of his sweat, his foul proximity and his aggressive zeal.
My arms stretchered wide for the obligatory futile body search, barely concealing my rapacious contempt as he waves his retarded magnetic wand as if it has a fucking magic power. Beep, beep, beep.
The glee in his eyes irrepressible ‘What’s that, what’s that?’ Pointing to my back pocket as if a toxic mutant hamster will somehow explode from it and endanger the entire airport. My eyes roll back in my head, I look at him as you do a child who doesn't understand how obvious their pathetic lie is to detect. ‘It’s my wallet’ the words dripping in derision and disgust. In deadpan slow motion I remove it, to his utter disappointment he inspects and returns it growling in visceral dissatisfaction.
Just as the insane charade is concluding he spots a bulge under my armpit beneath my shirt. Now unable to contain himself he boils over in a fervour of insinuation. ‘WHATS THAT, WHATS THAT’
We’re almost nose to nose, the volcano of rage rising inside me surges, lava flowing, burning upwards. The ferocity of the eruption impending, my eyes flash white with fury, mind a blur of swirling violence, my chest straining to hold the burgeoning supernova.
One punch to the throat, a sharp kick to the groin and then I can grab his ugly melon head with those burning red eyes and drive my knee so hard through it he will be unconscious for a week, the imprint of my knee cap leaving a permanent scar on his nose for the remained of his pathetic pointless life.
The white hot rages passes my throat and as it climbs through my head the point of no return is upon me.
Somehow in the moment of clarity I look over his shoulder at the two security guards behind him, from my peripheral on my left two more and I know two on the right, I assume one or two behind me.
Oh I can take him down, no doubt and maybe one or two more but not all of them. The mental picture of me, covered in bruises and bandages in a cell calling the company on the other side of the country to inform them of my arrest and permanent deportation. The monster inside reluctantly subsides, the volcano cools, still locked in the glare of this hateful repugnant bull inches from me.
The tide of heat dissipates from my chest and a slither of control returns, the lava falls away. ‘It’s my passport holder’ The defiance in my voice still rigid. He knows I wanted to dance, he’d begged for it and I came so close to falling for his ruse, his game all along to provoke me, anyone, into the opportunity he lived for. Oh I would have broken more than his nose, I would have not been able to stop, they would have shot me in the midst of by insane fury just before I delivered the fatal blow.
In the same ridiculous slow motion, a hundred people watched the David and Goliath show as I dig underneath my shirt and produced my empty passport holder and hand it to one side without blinking. He holds my glare unable to fathom that I would deny him the satisfaction of his fight, but I would not die for him, nor would I show him the submission he so desperately sought.
He pulled back and snatched it from my hand, grunted and flicked it back in exasperation. It took everything in him to motion me onwards. As I walked towards the entry door of the gangway I notice the trembling in my hands.
It’s not every day you come so close to losing complete control, to being capable of insanity, possible homicide. For the second time in my life I was appalled at myself. I had learned as a child that anger was the enemy, that controlling my emotions an absolute essential. But the lesson was flawed, anger is a perfectly normal and necessary emotion, refusing to feel it, denying it, repressing it was drinking poison. The real threat was the actions that stem from it. The repression had stunted most of my emotions, a self protection mechanism of a five year old no longer serving me as an adult.