Desensitized

Isn't it strange what one can become accustomed to? {Image is "Capriccio" by Obscurae on Deviantart.}

My energy has been strange for a few days.  On Saturday, my Beloved One and I stayed up much later than we normally do.  We watched War, Inc. with John Cusack, Marissa Tomei, Sir Ben Kingsley, and Hillary Duff.  Strange film, you need to have a taste for the sarcastic stylings of satire and parody.  However, it was not without its high points.  John Cusack played a mercenary who kept the demons at bay by chugging hot sauce, and playing with cobras.  Marissa Tomei played a journalist on the front lines in a country ravaged by the war on terror.  Sir Ben Kingsley played “the viceroy”.  A very strange, good ol’ boy from the American south; a Wizard Of Oz, ‘man-behind-the-curtain’ sort of fellow.  Hillary Duff played an oversexed pop star, say the Britney Spears/Paris Hilton of the mid-east.

It was a strange evening.  Surreal.  Life imitating art imitating life. . .

There we were, my Beloved One and I, in the midst of the movie.  There is a scene where Hillary Duff and her entourage arrive at a bar, and her bodyguards fire their guns into the air to announce her entrance.  BANG, BANG, B-BANG on the television screen.  Then BANG-BANG-BANG-BANG {wait for it. . .} BANG! outside the window.  The shooting was closer than ever before.

Twice in the past, I’ve heard guns fired nearby, called 9-1-1 to make a report.  Neither of those reports amounted to much police coverage of this neighborhood.  Maybe people just realize it’s the stuff of urban legends, so they don’t even bother looking in on it?  However, this particular time around, there happened to be a police officer waiting at a stop-light as the shots were fired.  He turned on his lights, and went to investigate the situation.  Within minutes, ten or more other police cars arrived, and shut down the neighborhood within a two block radius.  My Beloved One and I went for a little walk—after the authorities arrived—and pointed out a few bullet casings on the ground that they seem to have missed in their search.

There was not much about the event on the news, but when we saw firemen scaling the roof of a store across the street, looking for something, we called a local news station’s office and asked if they knew what was happening.  Not much insight, but we were told that the police had taken someone in for questioning.

The neighborhood seemed oddly quieter after the forty-five minute display of red and blue police lights.

Still, it’s rather strange. . .  A few years ago, anything like this would horrify me.  {I’m not guessing I remember.  Anything like this did horrify me.}  And perhaps this is not a realization of a good thing, but it’s impressive how much chaos one can become accustomed to.  The shock wears off.  If I looked out my window tomorrow and saw that everyone was walking around wearing gas-masks, I’d be panicked at first, and then I’d gradually come to ignore it.  There go the gas-masked men again.  One minute, I feel safe.  The next minute, I wonder why I felt safe a moment before.  And it goes on in a slow, gradual cycle heading toward the next time something similar occurs.  And each time something similar does occur, I become slightly more desensitized.

I am glad that—to our knowledge, considering what we saw—no one was hurt.  I am thankful that Nikko was away for a weekend’s respite.  Waking up and hearing something like that would have terrified him.

However: one thing I now know:  As soon as we can move to a better neighborhood, we’re going to!  Because I do not want to be desensitized.  The world should be better than this.

©  Jeffrey Puukka, 2010