All of my ramblings on one site ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mi vicerno es tu vicerno So, yesterday was crazy. There was a shoot out at the house behind and to the right of my house. A 61 yr old man with mental health issues and too many guns was assaulting his kids. Hundreds of rounds were let out between both sides. I saw a man with a riot sheild and another man next to him with what Devin identified as an MP5 (sounds legit) hiding behind a shed. We layed low on the kitchen floor but I couldn't help but peek out the window. That's when the police came into our apartment hallway and alllll the way up our stairs and yelled for everyone to get out of the house. He kept yelling that the gunman had a rifle and that the bullets wouldn't stop until they hit concrete. We ran all the way down stairs and across the street and he kept shouting at us to hurry hurry hurry. There was still gunfire happening as we were running. The air smelled like what I imagine gun powder smells like. It smelled like if you fired off a few cap guns "clips" from the dollar store in an unventilated area. We file into the cramped hallway of a latino family who was as startled and confused and tired as us. We then quickly tiptoe down the stairs into a large, dark, unfinished basement. Theres a little girl down there shaking, she has to pee but she can't tell us because we're strangers who don't speak her language. With my 101 day Duo Lingo streak I could probably have translated if I had a scrap peice of paper, a pen, and a little quiet. The random plumber who was in this mess with us beat me to it and saved me the embarassment by yelling up the stairs "uuuuuuhh youre daughter hAs To PeE?" The cop lets us know it's safe to come out. As we turn the corner to face our house, we can't help but see that the sky is black in our little vicinity. A bullet must've heat a heater or something because the house was being consumed by fire in the 5 minutes we were underground. The gunman died, no one else was hurt. We sat in my craft room and watched the fire fighters put the fire out. I watched them all day. They didn't leave until dark. Today there were reporters walking the neighborhood. They didn't stop us so obv they didn't need any more material, which is fine because we didn't want to be bothered anyway. Devin and I are discovering parts of ourselves previously unknown and bonding really well. We've been taking really good care of each other and ourselves. A resoundingly bright white light of clarity is blinding me to the every day things. I drove to work in a daze this morning. I sat down with my boss and told her the story, and she insisted I take a mental health day. I spent some money at Kohls and Ulta, took a long nap, smoked a lot of weed, and had lunch and watched TV with Devin. I wish my dad was here so I could tell him about this. I wonder what the evolution of this will look like. I'm so worried about looking like I'm milking this tragedy but also when I went shopping earlier, an employee was shoveling snow in the parking lot and the sound of the heavy plastic dragging on the ground put me in a quick tizzy that I was able to snap out of promptly. Hearing yelling and sirens outside does the same thing. I bought my across the street neighbors an easy to care for plant in a pretty pink pot, made them a teeny card that said "gracias por protegernos. -tu vicernos" I ripped a page out of my sticker pack of all cute little portraits of dogs and on the back I wrote "por la nina". For the girl in the basement holding her little dog tight as she shook and looked beyond all the strangers in her home. 11:58 p.m. - 2022-02-11 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- |
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