MOHAMMED
(Snapping.) You don’t know what it’s like! Times have changed! It’s not about Paki this or Paki that. I understand that. But it’s not that. They don’t even hate Asians anymore, they hate us…specifically us…and I feel sick. Some days I can barely go out on to the street, on the tube, to school without feeling like my throat’s gonna seize up. They look at us…they know who we are and they hate us…the amount of fucking times I’ve got on the train and people have moved away from me…and I know exactly what’s going on up here. (MOHAMMED taps his head.) They’re thinking that at least if they’re in the further part of the carriage, then when my bomb goes off, they’ll lose a leg or an arm – but not their lives. I know they’re not getting up to get off the train ’cos I watch them… I fucking watch them. And they watch me watching them. And they NEVER get off at the next stop. Never. And you wanna know the worst thing? They give me that pathetic fucking I’m-ever-so-polite English half-smile like this (MOHAMMED demonstrates this smile.) before they move away from me. (Pause, breathing in heavily.) When you see a white person with a backpack on, everyone thinks backpacker… But when you see an Asian with a backpack on, you’re only left with terrorist. And that’s what I’m saying. Why can’t we all be backpackers? Give me an answer and I’ll be happy. I just want an answer. (Beat.) And even though I would never have imagined Fatima in a million years putting on the hijab before she did, I don’t blame her and I understand. I understand how she did it even though I don’t know why. (Crying.) I don’t know why.