I heard my first gunshots today. I was driving to KFC for dinner, on the phone with my sister when I heard 5 loud pops. I thought they sounded like gunshots, but nobody around me reacted to them. All of the cars kept driving, and the man panhandling on the side of the road kept walking around asking for money. I assumed I must have heard fireworks or something. I drove about 50 feet further to the KFC, got my food, and looped back on the same road toward my house. Right where I had heard the noises, police officers had blocked off the road, ambulances were loading someone in the back, glass was shot out of the bus stop window, and yellow crime scene tape was wrapped around the block. I guess it really was gunshots I had heard. I was less than 100 feet away when it had happened. The shooting happened at the same bus stop I had waited at every day on my way to school before I had my car, just two blocks from my front door. I knew I had chosen to live in a slightly dangerous neighborhood, and I like living in an area of the city that reminds me of the needs of the city and why I moved here in the first place. But this night shook me up a little. It amazed me that after hearing the shots, nobody really reacted. Someone was hurt, possibly even killed, within feet of me and nobody, myself included, did anything about it. I don't know if there was anything I even could have done, besides call 911, but I haven't been able to completely shake the unsettling feeling I have knowing that every day people are killed like this and the world just keeps going. I worry that I am becoming hardened by the city and that things like this don't shake me as much as they should.
No comments:
Post a Comment