Reflections From the Day After

Paris bleeds again. It was not so long ago that "Je Suis Charlie" posters papered every wall, every light post, every Facebook profile picture. In fact, I saw it from the tram just now, hanging faded in a store window, just past Langstross Grande Rue.

My mother told me to come home. Now. I told her that Hollande had declared "un Etats d'urgence"and closed the borders. And my mother cried. I don't think she misunderstood me, but that she knew my returning home was impossible.

We had heard about the Paris attacks last night at my friend's apartment. We were safe, warm, and happily buzzed. All of a sudden:

"Merde!" Romain said.

We did not pay much attention at first. He repeated himself and said something very quickly in French. I heard only "Paris" "terreur" and "18 morts". That was how we found out about the bombs at the friendly German-French soccer match, a game between two Western giants. The president was there, and we heard first that he was safely evacuated, and then that everyone else was. If they could be evacuated, that is.

We kept refreshing open pages on our devices. We learned that hostages were taken at the Bataclan. Nobody knew exactly how many, then 12, maybe, and then 100s. The death tolls jumped. Shootings, more than one.

"Merde!"

And contained in the word we heard the shock, the anger, and the horror- it was too early yet for fear to permeate his voice. The word had lost its original meaning, floating in the air as some audible representation of not Romain's sentiments, but of all of France. And it became vulgar for a different reason.

We left. The death toll doubled by the time I left my friends and descended onto Gare Central, climbed the escalator, and went home. Everywhere in the streets I heard:

"Paris! Paris!" There were other words too, but they blended together until they became fuzzy, and melted into the background.

There was also echoes of Romain's expletive:

"Merde!" Especially the men smoking by the tram stop.

When I arrived at my door, I shut it behind me like I was afraid to wake up the building. It was not yet 11.

"Here it is different,"Claire told me when she came home. Everyone knows someone in Paris." That is true, even for us; some Syracuse students had gone to the soccer game, and my roommate had gone to see Versailles.

I stayed up very late with Claire, watching the news. Listening to big, important men in expensive suits give speeches. Listening to the silence outside her window.