Bataclan

He lies on the bed, toying with the remote. Every channel, every discussion, every image he has seen a thousand times. “Friday night's attacks”, “rising death toll, the number now stands at 127 dead, with more than 300 injured”, “Bataclan” “Carillon”, “scenes of carnage” “we managed to escape”, the sheer number of journalist accents, montages of international leaders condemning the actions, and the sounds of sirens in all the clips. It makes him jump every time a siren passes under the window. It is astounding how one half hour on evening could shake the world this much.

He doesn't want to go outside. It is a ghost town, anyway, no one wants to go outside. The shops are closed, the metro is closed. No one looks at each other - he can see them through his window.

Live feed keeps adding to the death toll, keeps linking to witnesses' stories. Photos of carnage, frenzied videos. People going down, tripping those trying to flee the scene. (Little warnings about graphic content).

The smell of the coffee he made three hours ago is going to make him sick. These walls. But he can't go to the door. He won't close the curtain, (or the window). It looks too obvious, too scared. (“We're staying. We can't cower because that's what they want,” says a man on the television).

Were they still out there? Were they coming for him? Another #porteouverte notification – this one only half a block away. Good heavens, if he only had the strength to get there. Perhaps being amongst people would help. The safest time to travel, actually (so someone said on the tv). Everyone on high alert.

A loud noise.

He jumps. In fact, he is so frightened, he may have soiled himself. It was only a knock at the door, a server who had come to clean the room. Breathlessly, he bids them leave, too hurriedly, too angrily – ashamed of his fear.

They were coming. They'd have to be. Them and every one else. Every single one of the dead, rising from their hastily-donated death sheets, standing in their own blood on the sidewalks. Look around you, they are everywhere! No dignity in death only quantity of corpses. But it's not them. It is the people weeping at the sites of flowers and candles. Not the ones who will, days from now, be taking up arms and waving burning banners. It is those weeping. They accuse him.

What is this you have done?