The Bystander Effect

 

The Day Inexperience Spoke Up

    It was a crisp Thursday afternoon in Greenstone. The autumn air carried the scent of fallen leaves from the old trees lining High Street, and the Gosp River murmured in the distance. The bus stop by the Stone Bridge had been busier than usual since Trailblazers Valley, the international company, brought more workers to the area.

At 4:30 PM, around fifteen people were waiting. Jack Morrison, the confident mechanic who’d fixed countless breakdowns in town; Sarah Chen, the nurse from Greenstone Medical Centre, trained for emergencies; Robert Hayes, ex-military and now head of security at Trailblazers Valley; and Emma Walsh—seventeen, small, bespectacled, working part-time at the bookshop, known more for poetry than confrontation.

The trouble began when Derek Mason staggered into view. Once a friendly neighbour, he’d been spiralling since losing his job months earlier. Today, he was flushed, unsteady, and loud.

“Where’s that bloody bus?!” he yelled. “Useless! This whole town’s useless!”

People shifted uncomfortably. Jack checked his phone. Sarah took a step back. Robert stayed still, arms crossed.

Then Derek kicked a rubbish bin so hard it slammed into the pavement with a metallic crash, making several people flinch. His eyes scanned the crowd before locking on Mrs. Patterson, an elderly woman at the edge of the group.

“You think you’re better than me, don’t you?” he barked, stomping toward her. His gestures were sharp and unpredictable, his face inches from hers. Mrs. Patterson shrank back until her shoulders pressed against the shelter wall.

Jack thought, Robert should handle this. He’s trained.

 Robert thought, Jack knows him. He’ll step in.

 Sarah thought, I’m a nurse, not a negotiator. What if I make it worse?

And so, nothing happened.

Later, a psychologist might have called it the bystander effect—the paralysis that strikes groups when everyone assumes someone else will act. In a crowd, responsibility scatters until it feels like it belongs to no one.

Meanwhile, Derek’s voice was growing harsher, his arm swinging dangerously close to Mrs. Patterson’s face.

That was when Emma stepped forward.

“Derek,” she said, her voice barely audible but enough to make him turn.

“What did you say?” His words were a challenge, but there was a flicker of surprise.

Emma’s hands shook, but she didn’t retreat. “You’re Derek Mason. Last winter… you helped my mum when her car wouldn’t start. It was snowing. You stayed out there for ages until it worked.”

The crowd watched, stunned.

“You didn’t know us,” Emma continued, “but you still helped. My mum said Greenstone has good people. You were one of them.”

His brows knitted. “That blue Corsa… yeah, I remember.”

“She still talks about it,” Emma said, inching closer.

It was like watching a balloon lose air. Derek’s shoulders dropped. His hands fell to his sides. He turned back to Mrs. Patterson, his voice almost a whisper. “I’m sorry. I scared you.”

Mrs. Patterson nodded, still shaken but no longer cornered. Derek muttered something about going home and walked away.

The tension dissolved. The bus arrived moments later, and people filed on in near silence.

On board, Jack said to Emma, “That was… impressive.”

Emma adjusted her glasses. “I was terrified. But everyone was waiting, and Mrs. Patterson looked like she might faint. Someone had to say something.”

Sarah frowned. “But why you?”

Emma shrugged. “Maybe because I realised no one else was going to. Everyone was thinking about why someone else should act. But that’s how the bystander effect works—it convinces you that your inaction is fine because someone more capable will step in. Until they don’t... and also, because I thing that I have no prestige to lose, you know what I mean”

That evening, the story travelled through Greenstone’s pubs and cafés. People discussed courage without realising they were also talking about psychology—the way groups can freeze, the way responsibility can vanish into the crowd. And how, in that moment, the quietest person at the bus stop became the one who broke the spell.

Not because she was the strongest, or the most skilled. But because she refused to keep waiting.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 13/08/2025

Ulysses?! Really?

    

Ulysses?! Really?

    What do we expect from a novel? A gripping plot, compelling characters, and the writer’s craft weaving it all together—at least, that’s what captivates me. So, when I opened Ulysses by James Joyce—a towering 1,000-page literary monolith often crowned as one of the greatest novels of all time—I was ready to dive into a great story.

And then… I got lost. Not in the story, but in the styles.

I can’t honestly recall much of the plot. What lingered, instead, was the sense of Joyce juggling literary techniques like a circus act, each chapter morphing into a new experimental form. For lovers of philology, this may be a goldmine. For me, it was a slog, I struggled to keep on. Somehow, I clawed my way to the final page—perhaps motivated by the bragging rights, or maybe just curiosity about where this labyrinth would end. But truthfully? I found it dull.

That’s the danger with long novels: the longer the story, the more pressure there is to hold the reader’s attention, build stakes, and deliver a payoff that ties it all together. Joyce tosses that structure aside. Instead, riders drift through a single day in Dublin, immersed in a torrent of internal monologue, meditations on marriage, affairs, funerals—endlessly looping in on itself.

Years later, I stumbled into a Twitter debate about Ulysses, surprised to find so many people who genuinely loved it. They praised its linguistic audacity, its depth of introspection, and its groundbreaking form. I respect that. I get it, in the same way I understand how some people find beauty in abstract jazz or obscure poetry (though they often leave me cold).

And yet—here’s the twist. The very fact that Ulysses resonates so deeply with others, while leaving me unmoved, is oddly comforting. It reminds me that the world is far richer and stranger than my own tastes can capture. What I see as confusion, someone else sees as genius. And that’s beautiful.

Because if literature has any real magic, maybe it lies there: not in agreement, but in the way it stretches the boundaries of what we think art should be.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 20/07/2025

Waiting to Be Triggered (The Easy Option)

   

Waiting to Be Triggered (The Easy Option)

    A committee meeting for the neighbourhood of Greenstone was scheduled at 8 p.m. in the old council room. The chair, Andy, sat at the head of the table. Among the members were Jacob Mitchells—father of Elisabet Mitchells, who was still recovering from a recent motorbike accident—and Elly Norton, mother of Jim Norton, the boy who’d been riding the motorbike.

On paper, the meeting had nothing to do with the accident. The agenda was to decide whether to extend the new streetlights to cover the entire neighbourhood. If they reached an agreement, they could present the plan to the town council and ask for funding.

Yet beneath the polite nods and measured words, the air felt dense with unspoken tension. Just last week, Jim’s motorbike had struck Elisabet, and while the police had intervened and a court date loomed, the roots of the conflict went deeper. For years, the Nortons had criticised the Mitchells for being aloof and self-important; the Mitchells defended what they saw as their right to choose whom they warmed up to—without being forced.

Andy watched them both, privately frustrated by what felt like a shared inability to confront conflict openly—to speak, not merely react. Instead, they seemed trapped by what psychologists might call an external locus of control: waiting for the other to provoke them, so they could justify their own anger as “only defending themselves.” Anything else felt too risky.

The paradox—plain to see for anyone looking closely—was that both sides simmered with anger and hurt, yet refused to let it show first. Each was fully prepared to defend their child, to snap back fiercely if provoked—but neither dared be seen as the instigator.

It wasn’t only pride holding them back. It was also fear: fear of being blamed, of surrendering moral high ground, of letting the other side use that first word against them. So emotion stayed clamped behind tight jaws, and hands gripped the table instead of pointing in accusation. Emotional inhibition became a fragile mask, worn for the sake of reputation.

In the end, they quietly voted to approve the streetlight extension. Andy, clearing his throat, opened the floor:

“Any other comments?”

Jacob and Elly hesitated—desperate, in truth, for the other to speak first, to unlock what they’d rehearsed privately all week. But silence won. The meeting ended, and the bitterness they’d carried in stayed carefully sealed inside.

As they stood to leave, Andy’s voice cut through the hush, tinged with weary disappointment:

“It’s ridiculous, isn’t it? You’re both so ready to speak—but only if you can pretend it’s just defending yourselves. It’s like no one here knows how to own anger unless someone else triggers it first. That’s why these meetings feel pointless.

He shook his head and walked out, leaving Jacob and Elly still staring at the scratched tabletop. Their unsaid words pressed painfully on their chests—caught between pride, fear, and the quiet tragedy of lives governed by reaction rather than choice. Outside, the street remained dim, as if even the town itself hesitated to illuminate what lay hidden in people’s hearts.

Toni Font, Aberdeen 11/07/2025