I’d seen him before. I hadn’t seen the gun before. A small silverish revolver that looked harmless in its own way. Despite the balaclava I knew him. His voice. His mannerisms. David from school, some ten years back.
When he fired the first two shots into the crowd most of the shopping centre turned their heads or froze in confusion. A loud bang. We’re not a country that has guns. We don’t know what they sound like or how to react to them.
The penny dropped over thirty seconds. People began to shuffle away. The person he’d shot was staggering about, his wife following him, confused and scared, asking him what was wrong. Drips of blood following his footsteps.
David was calm in his movements. He kept the revolver raised and fired the other shots into the crowd with a casual air about him. Those follow-up shots set the panic in for most people there that day. A mass exodus ensued.
I stood watching with a kind of absent terror. There was an odd normality to this. As if it were an expected and usual thing. There was no rush of adrenaline. No inner voice urging me to run. No desire to be the hero.
David looked at me. Whether he recognised me or not I could not say. He stood loading the revolver at the junction then walked off deeper into the shopping centre, following the crowds.
Paddy Dobson
22nd September 2021