O u t s i d e r
Issue #1 January 2016
History isn’t just the story of bad people doing bad things. It’s quite as much a story of people trying to do good things. But somehow, something goes wrong. C. S. Lewis
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It is not often one finds themselves on a crime scene. That may be a pretty general statement, I mean, I don’t know the unusual habits of some people or coincidental situations they find themselves in. However, I do know that crime scenes are strange places to find yourself in. They stir up emotions that perhaps haven’t been felt before; a feeling of empty, hopelessness. Standing where atrocities happened, at the bar on the corner of an unexpected Parisian street; away from tourist attractions and away from large swarms of people; at the Bataclan music venue where not only were there tragedies at the hands of gunmen, but in the panic raised many were caught in the stampede as people tried to flee the venue through any exit they could. You just had to wander around the area of the Bataclan to witness the aftermath of what happened there.
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solidarité
As we speak there are many atrocities happening at the hands of extremists. Paris was not of more importance, nor was it worse than incidents happening across the world. It was a wake up call. It is time to come together, in solidarity. We can learn from the lady in Paris; we must bow our heads, acknowledge the loss, remember the people, remember their loved ones who now have to live on without them, but we must carry on. The photographs included in this zine aim to show how people have carried on with their daily lives in Paris, in the months following the events that happened in Novemer 2015.
A strange, yet obvious thought crossed my mind though, as I stood immersed in the pain and the sorrow of people who came to give their triutes. I stood quietly for a moment; watching people, aware of our environment. A woman walks up to the mass of flowers, candles and drawings, reads the letters to the fallen, bows her head as she remembers the victims, walks slowly up the road, and carries on. Is this not a lesson that we must take?
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And coming where the crossroads separate And down each vista glories and wonders wait, Crowning each path with pinnacles so fair You know not which to choose, and hesitate --
Oh, go to Paris.
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There of an evening you shall sit at ease In the sweet month of flowering chestnut-trees, There with your little darling in your arms, Your pretty dark-eyed Manon or Louise.
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And looking out over the domes and towers That chime the fleeting quarters and the hours, While the bright clouds banked eastward back of them Blush in the sunset, pink as hawthorn flowers
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You cannot fail to think, as I have done, Some of life’s ends attained, so you be one Who measures life’s attainment by the hours That Joy has rescued from oblivion.
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And painters with big, serious eyes go rapt in dreams, fantastic shapes In corduroys and Spanish capes and locks uncut and flowing ties;
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And lovers wander two by two, oblivious among the press, And making one of them no less, all lovers shall be dear to you:
All laughing lips you move among, all happy hearts that, knowing what Makes life worth while, have wasted not the sweet reprieve of being young.
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Credit: Photographs by Lizzie Liddington © Poetry excerpts from ‘Paris’ by Alan Seeger ©