Die another day

I climbed up the stairs of the damaged building feeling bits and pieces of glass cracking up under my feet. Armed with a notebook and a pen, I marched hesitantly in search for the eyewitnesses, the ones who can display raw emotions. I talked to an old man in the hallway who burst in tears the minute he recalled the feelings of horror generated by the blast. To escape the crowd of journalists who smothered the shocked old man with attention instantly after noticing his tears, I went up to another floor. A partly wrecked door attracted my attention, so I knocked. An elderly woman opened in her pajamas, her wounded arm wrapped in a bandage. Two quaint dogs swirled around her, oblivious to the mass of glass pieces covering the floor. A relative of hers pulled me towards the balcony to show me “the miracle.” He pointed at a figurine of Saint Rita –the woman was also called Rita- still erect, despite the carnage, below a lit red light bulb.
Below, a hodgepodge of policemen, soldiers, ordinary people, rescuers, filled spaces between burned twisted cars, ambulances and army jeeps.
Rita, not the Saint, was looking absent-mindedly around her. She was restless moving around her house; unable to believe the state of mess it was in. Suddenly, her son burst into the room through the door, kept close by a water gallon and a piece of wood. The two embraced for few seconds. The son could not hold his tears. I looked at his frenetic expressions to figure out whether he was happy to see his mother in one piece or infuriated by what his dear mother had to go through.
The scene has become way too familiar, I thought. I knew exactly the steps I was to follow to produce an article where I am supposed to squeeze all these confused emotions in.
Despite the chaos, there is a frightening sense of déjà vu about every car bomb I have covered. And every time, I can’t help feeling I am an alien trying to pierce into people’s minds and hearts.
I returned home exhausted with a multitude of sounds buzzing in my head. I called a friend who lived in the area of the car bomb. He was fine. He was going to check a book for learning Spanish, that I had recommended, at a bookshop right next to the blast. Fortunately, he changed his mind at the last moment. Another miracle?
A memory from my childhood is still vividly present on my mind. It was summer and I was playing cards with my sister. My mother was insisting I go and buy some groceries but I kept on telling her that I wanted to finish the game. Seconds later a bomb ripped through the walls of the living room. I was saved by a "divine intervention". A bomb had just exploded near that grocery store I was supposed to go to.
It's strange how this memory has been haunting me much more often in the past few years. When my mother used to urge me with a worried look to take care everytime I left home, my reaction was always to say with the nonchalance of youth: "Mum, I can die anywhere, even here at home, if that huge chandelier fell on my head!"
But now I am constantly driven into the mental paths of the "what ifs?".
"I guess I’ll die another day, it’s not my time to go…", Madonna would have said! © El Periodista