A day in the life

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Recently, a woman and I greeted each other with “Good morning” at a newspaper stand.

I then asked: “How are you today?”

Her response: “I’m okay.” Then, after a slight pause: “Doing my best to stay alive.”

Her statement struck me as having more than the usual financial-survival implications, especially as the red headline staring at me from one newspaper was: “Homicide Cops Overwhelmed.” The subheading was: “Investigators voice concerns as murder toll hits 505.”

The date was October 31 – commonly known as Hallowe’en, that time when those inclined to do so dress in ghoulish costumes and have fun scaring others.

There is no need to play dress-up for Hallowe’en in TT. Increasingly, horrific occurrences are all around, daily – blood, gore and more, including the presence of the "walking dead" – people who exist among us without care for their or others’ lives.

With statistics like 505 murders at the end of October (no doubt more by now), it is accurate to say that we are all "doing our best to survive," even when we leave home to do mundane things such as going to the grocery, bank, office, beach or school...

A recent news video on social media showed small uniformed schoolchildren lying motionless on the floor under and between desks in their classroom at Rose Hill RC Primary School, East Dry River, Port of Spain. The teacher, with her phone in video record mode, was clearly protective, maintaining a courageous, steady presence in the face of what must have been terror.

Her hoarse whisper repeated –“Keep down”...“Shhhhhhh”... “Children, just be quiet”... “Oh my God!”

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The incessant volley of gunshots outside sounded like large kernels of popcorn erupting in a lidded pot. Had that video not been on a news page, I might have thought it was a scene from an amateur local short film...the jerky camera movements showing the teacher’s shoes as she walked among her "babies"...a pink schoolbag, a yellow Spongebob knapsack dangling from chairs... colourful bristol-board cut-outs of trees and people on the wall...and, on the floor, little children’s legs, shoes; and frozen eyes peeping up at "Miss"...Cute childhood imagery disturbingly accompanied by Wild West sound effects.

Those children must have been terrified. Or...God forbid, was what we viewers saw as a traumatic event simply their reality – and a routine drill?

The video reminded me of years ago, when I was still living in Trinidad. Having just finished teaching a yoga class, I was at a pizza outlet with a friend/student.

As we were about to bite into our orders, gunshots rang out in front of us. I (seated facing the large glass frontage) saw a black vehicle (parked in front of the outlet) suddenly lurch backward. The driver had apparently been shot in the head, killed while in reverse mode, about to leave the premises. A "hit," as the papers defined it thereafter.

Everyone scampered. I remember leaping over a small partition to the kitchen, then, quickly realising that was not a good place to hide should the gunman/men run inside shooting, I grabbed the hands of my friend/yoga student and a woman we did not know. We three ran down a corridor and locked ourselves in a toilet cubicle. We heard commotion. Had the gunman/men entered the outlet?

Like the teacher in the video, I whispered “Shhhh! Keep quiet”...as our unknown female companion kept loudly exclaiming that she needed to use the toilet.

As we huddled around the toilet bowl, I called home and whispered details of the situation to Daddy – not knowing if those would be my/our last moments.

After what felt like aeons, silence fell. I called the outlet’s number. A female employee answered in a perky customer service tone.

When I asked if it was okay to come out, she seemed confused.

“Come out of where?”

“The toilet cubicle.” I explained that we were still hiding. Had the gunmen left?

I remember her laughing: “You know how long that done?”

How quickly she seemed to have moved on. Back to work.

God forbid that we are becoming a nation that quickly "moves on" in acceptance of or numbness to the shootings and killings that seem to be a daily norm.

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"A day in the life"

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