The worst of times, the best of times

10

Assembly elections in the aftermath of 26/11 have sent a dignified message. Every action has acquired an unimaginable almost ridiculous trajectory. A friend laughs and sits back in her chair and the question arises, will we meet again like this on a sunlit afternoon? A child runs towards its mother, the trajectory flashes out again: was there a child that was shot before it reached its mother, was there time for a quick word of farewell? We brush the trajectories away. Foolish flights of imagination, why think about them when the sun is out again and we are still alive? But the trajectories creep up on us repeatedly, reminding us that our lives are hemmed in by an invisible destiny. In the aftermath of 26/11 we have all subconsciously confronted those unimaginable trajectories that now exist in all our lives. Yet in a curious irony, while we were....