a day in the life

More explosions. More dead, injured, lost in the smoke - just trying to get home. Looking for loved ones, and taxis to achieve some crude sense of safety as Moscow just keeps plodding along. No one here seems to be disturbed. It is not mentioned in conversation. Meetings go on. Fresh milk is delivered. Schools are open.

I am at a loss for words. I turn and turn in my sleep. I can't remember any of my dreams. I do not feel safe here.

I cannot shrug events off so easily. I see the baggage carousel in my mind's eye. After the journey, and passport control there is that fantastic sense of relief. That moment when you study everyone else that was on the flight just one more time, now with your foot up on a cart. Now pulling a fresh piece of gum from your pocket, the juice sliding around your mouth as you wait for the belt to lurch into motion.  You start to wonder if your bags made it, as each lump of luggage plops down, awkward as turtles on their backs. And in this lost stretch of time you are realizing the journey is over, that your girlfriend or your uncle is just past that glass wall waiting to squeeze your hand or kiss you twice on the lips, to look at your face with a sense of wonder as they try to see how your journey has changed you.

Instead, the explosion. Body parts around you, men and women missing legs and arms. Smoke everywhere, your eyes tearing, a deafening sound. And maybe lost in this moment you imagine what you would be seeing, smelling, feeling if you were not here right now. Those crude details of an ordinary day in your life that are transformed into something epic, majestic. The low rumble of the metro, the smell of vomit on the seats by this time of day, your child in school, dressed in her gym class uniform as she stands in line, a broom left outside in the cold air.