Thousand Eyes
“I lie awake And watch it all It feels like thousand eyes”
Inspired by the song ‘Thousand Eyes’ performed by Of Monsters and Men.
1.1.17
It was New Year’s Eve. We were all having a blast. We’re all a couple drinks in at this point. 3-2-1! Happy New Years! We hug our loved ones, show them our love. Another hour goes by, we’re all having a great time and soon someone yells “Wait, turn on the TV!” Nobody knows what’s going on. We turn the TV on and we see that there’s been a shooting at a night club, a place where anyone of us could have easily been. We turn off the music, sit down and call our parents to check in with them. Then, we start worrying about what if one of our friends were there and we start texting group chats. Pictures start coming in. Pictures of people like us all dressed up for New Years, covered in blood. Pictures of women who are covered in blood but still have make up on. Pictures of bodies lying down on the floor with pieces of shattered glass everywhere. We’re all terrified at this point. This is the 28thterror attack that took place in the country we live in, 11thin our hometown only in less than a year and a half. Dead counts start coming in and the reporting ban is out. Our only outlet to ‘unbiased’ information is gone but we sit there in front of the TV anyhow. This attack, it feels different than the others. It hurts us more. Media outlets call people, I’m sure they’re experts in their field, and get them to talk about terrorism and who might have possibly done this. We’re shocked. We’re scared. We know nothing. We just sit there and watch it all, with nothing to do.
5.6.18
It’s almost been a year and half. Things are looking better, definitely less attacks. Things are not looking better in the country’s political scheme but that’s for another day. So yeah, it’s been a long time and we don’t remember. It’s important to move on with our lives. I don’t mean to bring anyone down but that night was tough. It was absolutely terrifying and maybe sometimes, instead of talking of one particular night in July all the time, we should talk about attacks like this one because we live like everything is fine now but for a long time it really was not. We did keep on living our daily lives but it could’ve easily been me, my friends or my family in the airport, or the metro station, or the night club. In fact, my dad was in the airport the day before and the day after the attack. Instead of bullshitting everyday about this one night, to which I agree was horrible, we should talk about a problem that happened more often. We should talk about our people dying. We should talk about the report ban. We should talk about how scared we all were staring at the TV, not knowing what was going on. We should stop sitting there and watching it all.
