based on a true story

I live in an apartment that is right on the Cambridge/Somerville line and work in downtown Boston. I am also an immigrant and a person who, despite having lived in Boston for 21 years, has, for various reasons both personal and external, never identified with this city. Like many, my attention over the past week has been on this city, this country and this world, as well as notions of fear and community and strength and alienation. Moreso than in election months, my feeds had been overrun with that most banal of all political pamphlets, Internet memes with a provocative image and a ten word phrase recycling the same things over and over. On Thursday night, I had gotten fed up with this mental cycle and just unplugged. Shut off the phone, read a book, and went to bed. I was asleep when most of the shooting and the chaos erupted on Thursday night in Cambridge. On Friday, I woke to news of a lockdown and manhunt delivered via Facebook.

The T was closed but the lockdown request had not yet been issued for Boston yet. All the same, my feeds were full of friends urging each other to stay indoors. We need to let the authorities do their thing. There are men with guns who are tense and on the job for 24 hours without sleep. Don't be in the wrong place at the wrong time. Don't add to the chaos. We've had enough of that so far.

Still, there were a few critical projects at work that were running behind and I knew that we were going to get pressure to continue working. So I sent a message to my team:

( Gents. I trust you to do what is right for yourself. )
I had work to do, but left my laptop in the office, so I made coffee, showered, dressed, got my bike out and took a deep breath and went outside.

( The plan was to just nip into the office, get the laptop and go. )