Eight years ago nearly to this day I sat at a desk in the University College Dublin library. I was ostensibly studying for my finals, but I kept opening the newspaper and reading about the previous day's shooting at Columbine high school.
I took a break and looked around; students around me were chatting quietly and laughing, frowning at their books in concentration or lost in thought. Then the sudden ricochet of gunshots and screams, people cowering underneath desks and behind bookshelves, eyes shut with shuddering knees pulled tightly under chins, silently pleading to be passed over but never more aware of the frailty of their flesh and blood and what a bullet could make of it.
Eventually I put the newspaper away and pushed my feelings aside. But the memory of that day is still clear and strong.
Eight years later, the news and the numbers should shock me again, but the real surprise is the numbness.
Wednesday, April 18, 2007
Jaded
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
6 comments:
It's the numbness that is most disturbing, isn't it? I think it's the only way we can go on without living in fear.
Hope you're feeling better.
I just felt so sick when I heard the news. I just cannot comprehend how another human can commit such atrocities.
I'll just never forget how disturbed and upset I was after Columbine, especially as I lived on a campus at the time. It's so sad that school and campus shooting become relatively commonplace - I felt upset when I heard about each person individually at Virginia Tech, but I wasn't shocked. And I should have been.
One of my first instincts is to watch the news when the shootings 'became news'. After today though, I just wish the press would leave them in peace.
Hi Ginafish, hopefully the media will lay off soon. Though the discovery of his twisted press pack he created seems to have fueled media attention again. I just can't understand why someone would kill to become famous - it's sick.
it's quite scary, isn't it....that numbness.
Post a Comment