Dinner Time in the War Zone

The pandemic affects us all in weird ways. The isolation is crushing. Any human connection is welcome, no matter the circumstances.

There have been repeated shoot outs in my neighborhood over the past year. People driving through and always shooting in the direction of one particular house. We believe it's drug related but the cops won't tell us anything. And each time, after it was over the residents of the block come out to compare notes, talk, and to give and receive comfort. We see people on our block that we haven't seen in months, and it's comforting to talk with them and know that we're all in this together. It seems like if it wasn't for the shootings, we wouldn't see our neighbors at all. By the 3rd time we were already making jokes like... "We've got to stop meeting like this!" "You know, it's pretty cold. You think the cops would mind if we built a bonfire and had a block party? We're all out here anyway!" Yesterday it happened for the 5th time, and even though it was much bigger, and the police response was much larger, the event was so common that I didn't even bother to stay out very long. I went out in the cold, and stood around with everyone, but just like the introvert at the party, I quickly lost interest. It was dinner time and I had just turned the oven on when the shooting started. I went back in and started dinner, rather than watch the police cordon off the street. Again. It's strange, the things you can get used to.

I feel like there's a story in this, or maybe a character, but it won't come out yet. At the very least, I know what it's like to hear gunshots just a block away, and know that someone has just lost their life. I know the difference between gunshots in front of my house, and gunshots from a block away. I know that sometimes adrenaline kicks in so hard I forget how to dial 911 on my cellphone, and other times I'm so done and over it that I turn the video camera on my phone on, and I blithely walk toward the sound of gunfire in the hopes to catch a glimpse of something that will put these people in jail.

These are experiences and realizations I didn't ever want, but as a writer I can't help but put them into my writing. It's all relatable human experience that can be put into a story. That's how these horrific experiences affect me the most. It's a new story to write, sometime after dinner, in the war zone.