Over two months ago, a person in the place where I live was sexually assaulted just two doors down from mine.
Why, why am I telling you this?
The assaulter entered the person’s apartment with an excuse, shut the door behind them and proceeded to push my neighbour onto their bed, undressing them and keeping them quiet with a hand over their mouth. The rest of us, living along the same corridor as this person, woke at what seemed the middle of a Saturday night/Sunday morning to muffled banging and screams, and only a couple of weak but desperate cries for help. Used to loud music, slamming doors and thin walls, one could have mistaken the noises for a couple arguing loudly, turned, and gone back to sleep. But something seemed off. Listen to your heart.
Some of us living next door took to the corridor. My reaction was to crawl out of bed, truly scared: I was shaking without even understanding what was going on, completely in the “flight” mode, especially realizing that the screams for help were real, and kept coming. I literally thought someone was being tortured in some sadic sadomaso sex going horribly wrong. The truth is and was unfortunately just as scary.
Two young men with strong physical constitution soon realized what was going on, much sooner than I did, much sooner, and thankfully for my neighbour being attacked. Banging on their door, threatening to break it down if it weren’t opened and my neighbour let out, they surely woke the rest of the people in our corridor who hadn’t already been woken. But hardly anyone stuck their nose out of their door, almost only a few stout and resilient young women, despite there being equal numbers of gender identities in the corridor..
The screams became stronger, mingled with clear sounds of sobbing and gasping for breath, encouraged by the voices outside the door clamouring for clarity.. until they stopped suddenly, the door was opened and my neighbour was literally thrust outside their own home onto the dirty corridor floor wearing only a lose t-shirt and their slip. Crouching on the pseudo-plastic surface, clutching their chest, crying of sheer terror and disbelief, violated in their privacy, shocked and shaking, scared of any face, any voice. I will not forget their expression of pure horror for so many years..
The attacker managed to run for it. They were caught two weeks later at a train station by the police, who literally took DNA samples from my neighbour’s bedroom to identify them.
Why, why am I telling you this?
Because if every person knew. What it feels like. To look into the eyes of a person sobbing and screaming on a dirty corridor floor half undressed, indescribable terror in their expression.
If everyone knew what it feels like to wake in the middle of the night hearing screams for help.
If everyone knew what it feels like to walk around your own apartment in the evening, every evening for at least a week, holding a hard, hard object in your hand with the clear intention of smashing it into anything that moves unexpectedly, creeping towards all the darker corners and cabinets, real fear rising from your chest, fear which you experienced first-hand because you saw it in the eyes of someone you know, have talked to, have said “good morning” to a few times..
If everyone knew. And taught their children that to perpetuate this kind of violence, to instill this kind of fear into another Creature is WRONG. Then.. the world might start to change, one adult and one child at a time.
We would not think of destroying the sacred private space of other people.
We would not violate the intimacy of other people.
We would not open our doors out of good-heartedness to people asking us strange things at strange hours of the day or night.
We would all step out of our safe nests to help those screaming for help.
We would all start banging VIOLENTLY on the doors from which cries for help are coming.
We would, and could, all know how to act.
We would feel scared, but not alone or crazy, “overreacting”.
Peace: act towards it.