It’s a Friday night. So far as you can tell, you had only blinked and in that time a week was lost to you. You’re sitting in the living room watching nothing in particular with your family, who are draped over the furniture around you like blankets over a bed, restful. You’re kind of, sort of, yet not really paying attention to the television. Your phone buzzes with the odd text coming in, friends and half-friends, all talking about what seems important in the moment – the match, the movie, the Christmas plan. And then, in one of the many group chats full of your friends; One message. A message that wipes away everything else; the match, the movie, the Christmas plan. Confusion
Disbelief Curiosity People are shot every day; it’s on the rural news each evening. You do not panic yet. You have not realised yet. But the texts continue coming in, people who are beginning to understand faster than you. You think to check the news websites, expecting to have to scroll a bit to find this story – and yet it’s at the top, it’s “Breaking”. You check it the first time and it’s bad - still hasn’t sunk in yet though – but now it starts to. With every blow of the death toll rising higher, it’s a blow closer to your brain. You are now trying to remain calm. Surprise Shock Fear You find out about the hostages, and that’s what really makes it hit. These people are in that Theatre and they’re in it right now, while your dog is sleeping and your siblings are chatting and you’re just sitting and trying to squeeze this massive news down into a box that might fit into a reasonable spot in your head. Then you could figure it out, make it seem real instead of having a dreamlike quality. This can’t happen; not so close, not to these people whose city you shared once, with the beautiful faces and beautiful language. Panic Terror Drowning You don’t know what to do and you don’t know what you are doing – but you’ve just said what happened out loud, you think. Oh. Yes. Yes you have, because there is a reaction. But your mother’s reaction is not visceral enough – your little sibling’s, on the other hand, is. You didn’t mean to shock them – you’re always meant to shelter them – but how? How do you shelter them from what is hiding under their bed waiting to scare them? Tears drop from the kid’s face like the massacred people must have fallen to the ground and now you feel the true horror of it, you realise how wrong this is that it made your innocent one cry real tears of fear and sadness. Anger Rage Fury It’s gotten in. The importance is so clear to you now – you are those people, you are their friends and family, you are a terrified Parisian. And yet. Your siblings go to bed. Other news stories keep coming in, even though this one is still “breaking”. The chat shows keep running. The stories they tell, the words they say, they all mean nothing now, but they continue talking. And now you have to acknowledge what you are – a teenager. Unable to do anything more than use the hashtag that has sprung up, and repost the sympathy artwork on Instagram. Useless Powerless Worthless You go to bed. At least one of your friends is sitting up even still, even though it’s past twelve, because they can’t get a hold of that cousin, that aunt, that uncle. You lie awake. The thoughts of it suspended your mind, refusing to let it down to rest. Tears pour down your cheeks in an absent way. You’ve turned off your phone for the first time in your recent memory, so you do not hear when the hostages are rescued, you only continue to imagine them, hiding there. Worry Despair Torture It’s the morning after and you lean forwards on your couch. They have it all now – videos of the first shots into the concert; a Vine of a bomb going off the noise so palpable you’d swear it was in your garden; pictures of those who survived; pictures of those in body bags who didn’t. You start to wonder to the repercussions of this as you watch presidents declaring this as an act of war on the world, and you think back to the last thing of this magnitude; the last bombing of an important city, that time bringing down a building. The hate of the religion of the terrorists has been kickstarted along with speculation as to the motive. Concern Exhaustion Anticipation. Something else lurks on the edges of this attack of hate, though. As you read about Parisians opening their homes to those stranded in Paris and as you are told of the Muslim man who stopped the bombing of the stadium, there is love. There is hope to eradicate this fury brewing in the countries yours allies itself with, hope to destroy it with the love and sympathy showing up across the world. Tears stream down your face as you scroll through Facebook, seeing the flag emblazoned on the profile pictures of so many you know. And it is there that you read it, “Love and sympathy spread much faster than fear and hate.” Community Connection Support The love and sympathy stopper the hate and fear, but the sadness melts away much more slowly. Memorials are held everywhere. You get shivers from the power of watching the French worldwide yelling their anthem to show they will not be stopped. You feel the loss every time you see a building lit up in red, white and blue. When someone shakes their head, when your friend goes white, when faces sink between shoulders with the weight of it, people always ask them what is wrong. And they just say “Paris”. (Written by Molly Gervin) Comments are closed.
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