Shoulder-to-shoulder

Imagine you live in a country the size of New Brunswick, but inhabited by half the population of Canada. The people are generally very friendly, but you are constantly bombarded, shoulder-to-shoulder, by people every day. Everyone knows where you live before you tell them – taxi drivers, colleagues and new friends.

When you leave your house each morning, people shout “How are you?” from across the road as you approach your bus stop. You are in a good mood that morning so you wave, smile and return the question. One member of a group of girls walking slowly in front of you sees that you are behind her. She taps her friends on the arm and they both look at you and giggle. Soon they are all quietly laughing but you aren’t sure why. You laugh to yourself.

When you reach the bus, you climb on, catching the sleeve of your shirt on a bar that is sticking out of one of the benches. Luckily, you are able to maneuver it without tearing the material.

You crawl over a woman and her four-year-old child, who is perched on her lap, and settle yourself on the bench with two men on your other side. You have to duck your head down and pull your knees up toward your chest, as you are slightly too big for the space that you have squeezed yourself into.

As the bus pulls over to your stop, you tell the woman that you must crawl over her once again. You stumble out of the bus – all eyes on you – bumping your head on the ceiling. The man you were sitting beside is following behind you and as you rub your head, he says “oh, sorry white person.” You smile politely and hurry off to work.

As you rush past everyone around you, you wonder why everyone is taking their time getting to work. Won’t their superiors be upset if they are late? People come in and out of your office all morning, either to ask questions or just to say hello and stare at you. Finally, it is lunch time.

As you enjoy your meal, a group of children sit outside the window. They are waiting for your leftover food. You have mistakenly built an expectation in their head since the first week you were living in the densely populated town. You selfishly wish that you hadn’t given them your leftovers that first week because now you feel guilty finishing any of your meals.

As you leave the restaurant, you pass off the remainder of your lunch to the children and head back to work. After working the entire afternoon, it is time to go home. A colleague stops you on your way out. “Where have you been hiding?” he asks cheekily.

You reply, “Didn’t we see each other a few hours ago?” “Oh yes, that’s right. Let’s have lunch tomorrow,” he says as his eyes trace the length of your body. You scurry off again.

As you walk home, your phone rings. It’s an obnoxious ring tone but you have never been able to figure out how to change it. You answer. It is a new friend of yours, “Hey, I saw you walking down the road at 11:55 today.” You wonder why they didn’t say hello but you receive so many calls and texts like this each week that you have given up asking such a question.

You arrive home at 4:15 p.m. and your neighbours notice that you are home 15 minutes earlier than normal. They make a point to verbally recognize this. At this stage of the day, you want to say, “So what?! I am tired today!” But again, you politely smile, shrug your shoulders and walk up the driveway.

After supper, you crawl into bed, only to wake up into your nearly-celebrity-status life all over again.