london bombs

it was 2 weeks ago that it happened. people keep saying it's a different place to where i left, and it will be even more so now i guess.

i've never had any experience of death. none of my close family have ever died, nor close friends or colleagues. i've never been to a funeral. as people were being killed on the streets and on the tube all those days ago, i didn't even comprehend what was going on. the bus with the roof torn off and the dark pictures of the train carriages didn't connect with death or people being hurt. it didn't occur to me even when i saw people with injuries talk to the cameras, or the first casualties to reach hospitals. i watched it unfold like a slow book, like an inert member of a passive audience. it took me a while to realise that my friends and family live in london, and anyone one of them could have been caught up.

when i was living in london, terrorist attacks were always expected. i wouldn't say a climate of fear, but a sense of eventuallity. everytime the train was stuck in a tunnel for a little bit longer that it usually is. during the ricin and anthrax period, i'd always look up from the paper if more that 2 people started coughing heavily. the tube was always the place that was expected to be hit.

people say that cities are lonely places, where people ignore a body on the street or a person in peril. well, at least that has been proved wrong, if it only was for one day. see, we are all human after all.

luckily everyone i know are ok, though some sound like they were pretty close to it. it really is a different world.