There's a bomb on this bus17:17, Friday July 8I rush off the Skytrain at Joyce Station to catch the 41 bus and I make it just as the bus driver checks to see if everyone’s on board and ready to go. The bus is filling up but I manage to get a seat by the window, the row right in front of the back doors. A woman sits down sideways beside me, her legs facing the aisle of the bus and her boyfriend who is chatting with her stands behind her seat by the doors. The driver closes the front doors and starts his course towards Oak and 41.
My mind wanders and I open my book to a page near the end of a chapter. It’s Catch-22, a book I had put aside for a few years.
17:24With my trench coat scrunched on my lap and my bulky purse squished on the coat, I sit quietly half-reading and half-dozing off. Suddenly, I hear a pop sound like the bursting of a helium balloon. As passengers around me gasp, I look up from my book to see like bits of yellow scraps lingering in the air by the air. The bus is stopped and people are getting up, hurriedly heading off their seats to the door. My initial reaction is to grab my things and I scramble to follow the crowd off the bus.
“What was that?”
“I can’t breathe!”
“What happened??”
“Something exploded. . .”
“Does anybody have water??” Somebody is yelling.
“My eyes, my eyes.”
I think of the London bombings I read about yesterday - some Vancouverite might have been inspired by international news. The bus is off the side of the road by a bus stop - everybody is standing on the grass. A few people are helping a young woman by pouring water on her eyes, down her red face. A man emerges from the house by the bus stop asking if we need help.
“It’s cayenne pepper,” somebody says. “Pepper bomb.”
“Ugh, I can taste it in my mouth.”
“Ow, my face is burning.”
“Does anybody need water?”
A skinny South Asian woman is tearing up and quietly moaning.
“It’s okay,” I say to her. She doesn’t seem to understand.
“Am I going to go blind?” The anxious woman with the red face asks randomly. “Can somebody call the ambulance?”
17:32I’m on my phone with the Vancouver police. It’s my first time calling them and my right cheek is starting to burn. I tell them where we are and hand the phone to the woman who sat beside me. She seemed to have seen a lot more of what happened on the bus to give them details. I’m pouring water on my face from somebody’s drinking bottle and it doesn’t seem to help.
“What can I do to get rid of this?” I ask a guy who was pouring water down his face earlier.
“Just keep washing it off, it’ll go away.”
17:38I survey the scene and the South Asian woman is crying. “They’re on their way,” I tell her.
“Oh, you called 911 too?” Somebody asks me.
Another bus comes along and a couple of people board it. I rub my stinging cheeks and run towards the bus, not knowing what else to do. The bus pulls away and I hear sirens, a fire truck has arrived.
My phone rings. It’s the Vancouver Police.
“Did you see who did this?”
Luckily the woman and her boyfriend are also on the bus. I give the phone to her and she tells him about a guy who was sitting in front of her. The bomb exploded in his bag and then he sprinted off. She hands me the phone when she is done. My heart is still racing when I get to my stop.
