Wednesday, September 13, 2006

Staying alive in Montreal

At 1:15 this afternoon I got a call from one of my employees. He`s sounds totally freaked and tells me there`s a shooting going on. Where I ask - right here he says. He tells me there`s bodies everywhere. I thought he was kidding. He tells me there`s a couple of shooters and they`re evacuating the buildings around. He says he sees bodies out the window of our office. Fucking hell.

Outside my office window, 17 stories down my employees watched mayhem break out and bodies on the street. One fellow was missing in action. Luckily he turned up locked down in a bank. Everybody I know so far is OK, luckily I am in Ottawa right now.

Really strange watching CNN international coverage of bodies everywhere outside my office, the view that I see every day. This is the street that I walk down every day and past the people, stores, day care and school that I see every single day. Except today there`s blood everywhere, a swat team and a dead body on the sidewalk and today I`m seeing it on CNN.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

That is F***ing awful. It is beyond my comprehension that people could plot such a masacre.

Times like these it appears no one is ever 100% safe.

A few kids indulging in a pointless random act of violence has destroyed many lives directly and left the rest of the city/world horribly shaken.

Hopefully, there will be a way that you can help your community survive the ugliness of what today brought your city.


Do something proactive.

sanj said...

Yeah,it`s fucked.

I still can`t get over seeing my office building on CNN and MSNBC with a body in front of it and a SWAT team storming the street.

The twisted irony seems to be that the deranged guy was of Indian descent at least in part and so was the girl that he killed.

I`m kind of numb right now. I have to stop watching TV for a while.

hellophotokitty said...

Hey Sanj!
It's been almost two years since I started my blog, and that you commented on my post!

Geezalou.
How time flies...

I read this post, and it reminded me of where I was when I heard the news.

sitting on the grass feild in front of the Redpath Museum at McGill, I was eating lunch and noticed the hellicopters hovering above. Then the sirens. Something in my gut began to chill - "whatever it is, it can't be good."

Two students ran over to another who was sitting behind me:
"Did you hear?"
"what?"
"there's been a shooting over at dawson!"
"who's in town? What's the name of the movie?"
"not shooting a movie shooting, but real bang bang shooting."
"no fucken way!"
"My friend called me on my cell and said she saw this girl, all covered in blood walking down DeMaisoneuve screaming that her best friend had been shot. They have evacuated the area, apparently the guy is still in there and is still shooting!"

The sound of sirens and horns began to increase. More wounded, more blood, more chaos.

I put my lunch away, walked up the hill to a quiet spot and began to say a silent prayer...


(by the way - happy blossger anniversary!)

hpk