Chat
06-26-2010, 10:12 AM
Date: 6/25/2010
At a hospital, where apparently I worked. Standing at the doorway to the ER. There was a huge disruption - started from outside, like a wave of destruction that rolled through. It was of such magnitude that though my experience was local I knew the effects were widespread and changed everything. The scene rippled, like a shockwave. The damage, though not particularly graphic was profound. As the wave pulsed through I caught a glimpse of M., a doctor I once worked with IRL - he was simultaneously at the heart of the wave (as it entered the scene) and blasted through the room with everyone else.
The chaos was instantaneous and casualties, though obviously injured seemed more like psychological trauma surivors. I felt such grief. As I watched M. make his way through the room, he was shell-shocked, unable to function - I felt moved to comfort him and though his emotional response was effaced, there was a sense of relief.
Time passed a bit - to within a few days or so later and obvious cultural references to the disaster had been adopted - there was a tally of victims and refugees. We all looked at each other with different eyes. We were all refugees, though we hadn't moved. There was a kind of citizens or refugees organization - people were meeting and there was a spirit of democratic power at the meetings. As I went toward a meeting room I saw a woman reading a book, in front of the book she held a piece of paper that mentioned a friend of mine, saying she had "gone home to India." That seemed amazing - not just that I'd never known her home was India, but that she'd managed to get a flight before they had become impossible to get, so rare - before the flights had been stopped, which had been almost immediately after the catastrophe.
At a hospital, where apparently I worked. Standing at the doorway to the ER. There was a huge disruption - started from outside, like a wave of destruction that rolled through. It was of such magnitude that though my experience was local I knew the effects were widespread and changed everything. The scene rippled, like a shockwave. The damage, though not particularly graphic was profound. As the wave pulsed through I caught a glimpse of M., a doctor I once worked with IRL - he was simultaneously at the heart of the wave (as it entered the scene) and blasted through the room with everyone else.
The chaos was instantaneous and casualties, though obviously injured seemed more like psychological trauma surivors. I felt such grief. As I watched M. make his way through the room, he was shell-shocked, unable to function - I felt moved to comfort him and though his emotional response was effaced, there was a sense of relief.
Time passed a bit - to within a few days or so later and obvious cultural references to the disaster had been adopted - there was a tally of victims and refugees. We all looked at each other with different eyes. We were all refugees, though we hadn't moved. There was a kind of citizens or refugees organization - people were meeting and there was a spirit of democratic power at the meetings. As I went toward a meeting room I saw a woman reading a book, in front of the book she held a piece of paper that mentioned a friend of mine, saying she had "gone home to India." That seemed amazing - not just that I'd never known her home was India, but that she'd managed to get a flight before they had become impossible to get, so rare - before the flights had been stopped, which had been almost immediately after the catastrophe.