Terrible, terrible things are happening in the world at the moment. Paris, Beirut, Syria, Mali and it saddens me to say that by this time next week there could well be another to add to the list.
I was in Paris when it happened. I had received some bad news and so cancelled my drinks plans and went home. Basically I went home because I felt grumpy; bad news is an over the top way of saying I got rejected by a boy and I didn’t want to talk to anyone.
The events happened close to where I live. It was scary but I was in my flat with my housemate and so I can’t say that the actual evening inflicted any more pain on me than anyone else who was reading the news.
What I do feel connected to however is the aftermath. I don’t mean the online stuff although yes, I did write a status and yes I did change my profile picture. I don’t care if that is ‘what ISIS wants’. I wasn’t thinking of them at all I was just thinking of the lives lost.
What I mean by the aftermath is Paris now. I went to République on the Sunday to pay my respects; I didn’t really think about what that meant until I got there. For me, it was very emotional because there was so much love on display. Everyday life makes you forget the love you feel for the human race and the world we live in. When something shocks us however, it wakes us up and we remember to turn around and say, “by the way, I love you”. It’s probably the only good thing that comes out of tragedies.
Literally five minutes after I left République there was a wave of fear with people running in all directions screaming. Sheer terror broke out as everyone thought that another attack was happening. Sheer terror.
People have tried to get back to their daily lives. I live so close to where the attacks were and yet my local neighborhood was up and running with shops and bakeries open the following day!
The people of Paris want to defy the terrorists. They want to defy them but they can’t. The fact of the matter is that Paris is a really strange place to be at the moment. I’ve been going to uni everyday as I usually would, I’ve been going to bars and I am back in my routine. However, we have security checks to get into every building at uni. There was a bomb scare near Gare de Lyon the other day so I was held there for a while “for my security”. Today a load of policemen came running onto the train shouting “He’s going towards Cour Saint-Emillion. Do you have any more information?” into their walky-talkies. Cour Saint-Emillion was two stops away. All the passengers just looked at each other with this horrible look in their eyes, too afraid to speak but too defiant to get off the train. It genuinely felt like we might be heading to our deaths. It turned out to be absolutely fine but the lady next to me on the train had a panic attack. The poor woman was an absolute state and God, I don’t blame her.
A few days after the attacks, a train I was on stopped and the lights went out with no announcement or explanation. This is a very normal occurrence but in the wake of the events, we were all thinking what none of us could say. When the lights came back on there were tears in a few of the passenger’s eyes.
There is fear all over Paris and I hate it. Today’s event with the lady’s panic attack was the worst. I know that rationally we’re safer after the attacks than before but the shock that it could happen at all means that, for the time being, we don’t trust rationale.
So that’s Paris at the moment. Scared, sad, defiant but always, always beautiful.