Shortly after the depression set in like a over-sized linebacker for the Patriots.
I hear the couches slide for the first time away from the outside door. I realize that my left butt cheek had been asleep for like 20 minutes. And I did not want to move for worry that I would move out of a position that allowed the gunman to kill the others in the room.
I stand quickly or tried to stand quickly more like a overgrown Rhino coming to terms it is time to move. As I open the door a cold breeze enters the room. I can feel a difference in the atmosphere that was not there before we piled in like economy sized hot dogs into a package.
It is a security guard that has come to relieve us of our camouflage of surety. All of a sudden I remember, I had to still see if my last click on the computer screen for email password submission was actually accepted by their algorithm. It was surprise, surprise.
As I went to the computer screen. I noticed the little angel that was trying to help me before was right at my side again. She needed to assure my usage of the computer was completed.
I got the sense that she and everyone needed a feel of regularity. So I take up the new task. And so I sit down and start asking questions like nothing has happened. The depression and murky waters of uncertainty are still enveloping me but I have a new job.
Get everyone back to normal.
I listen to people, I speak to them like everything was a mirage. And do not bring up the terror of waiting to die. I have to ask myself why did I do that. Did I fall into a false masculinity of being a noble man or was I just simply in shock?
Shock and disassociation are incredibly similar. They both stop the relay of information to the body currently. But just like each the information still has to get through the brain and the emotions still have to be felt.
My concerns for the others is overriding my desire for my own safety currently. As we finish up and I start to take my leave I am walking down the hallway and it is numb.
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Read more in this series by Brian Cordoza, here.
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Image by author. Used with permission.
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