Sugar Glass
Today, I saw a man not ten feet away from me go through a plate-glass window. I was looking in that general direction (of a café) while Amy and Margaret consulted our map, and a sudden movement caught the corner of my eye: this older black man, who had been sitting quietly at his table just inside the front of the café, suddenly doubled over and started convulsing erratically, as if he were grappling with something invisible-- I actually thought that a fight had broken out inside, for a moment, before I realized no one was there with him. He tumbled from his chair and spasmed for a few moments, then suddenly launched a hard right, towards the street.
The glass exploded.
I have never seen anything like that in my life. If anyone ever tells you that movies have it wrong, that it's impossible to go through a window nowadays because they're too strong, that only sugar-glass breaks like that, they're mistaken. The window shattered, burst from the wall in a million crystalline pieces, and I swear, I saw the shards pause and glitter for a moment in mid-air as the man barreled through the glass and tumbled, writhing, to the pavement.
Everyone froze. As the shock wore off, though, no one panicked in the way I assumed they would-- There was no screaming, no raised voices, just an instant flurry of discussion over what just happened as multiple people rushed towards the man on the ground. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" "Il est épileptique?" Someone stabilized him and held him steady; I suppose someone else called the police and an ambulance, because when we came back that way later, they were just arriving. Amy, Margaret, and I backed away to give everyone space; I wondered if I should ask if someone had called a doctor, then realized I didn't know the word for ambulance. The broken glass glittered on the sidewalk.
When we came past later, having finally gotten turned around and headed in the right direction, the police had just arrived and the ambulance was pulling up, its sirens wailing. The woman who took charge was snapping at people for getting too close while reassuring the man that everything was okay, that he was going to be fine, that no one was going to hurt him; we could see that his arms were all cut up from the glass; there was dark blood dripping down his visible hand and arm from where it had been slashed up in the fall.
Add this one to "Things I Never Thought I'd See."
[x-posted to tumblr]
The glass exploded.
I have never seen anything like that in my life. If anyone ever tells you that movies have it wrong, that it's impossible to go through a window nowadays because they're too strong, that only sugar-glass breaks like that, they're mistaken. The window shattered, burst from the wall in a million crystalline pieces, and I swear, I saw the shards pause and glitter for a moment in mid-air as the man barreled through the glass and tumbled, writhing, to the pavement.
Everyone froze. As the shock wore off, though, no one panicked in the way I assumed they would-- There was no screaming, no raised voices, just an instant flurry of discussion over what just happened as multiple people rushed towards the man on the ground. "Qu'est-ce qui se passe?" "Il est épileptique?" Someone stabilized him and held him steady; I suppose someone else called the police and an ambulance, because when we came back that way later, they were just arriving. Amy, Margaret, and I backed away to give everyone space; I wondered if I should ask if someone had called a doctor, then realized I didn't know the word for ambulance. The broken glass glittered on the sidewalk.
When we came past later, having finally gotten turned around and headed in the right direction, the police had just arrived and the ambulance was pulling up, its sirens wailing. The woman who took charge was snapping at people for getting too close while reassuring the man that everything was okay, that he was going to be fine, that no one was going to hurt him; we could see that his arms were all cut up from the glass; there was dark blood dripping down his visible hand and arm from where it had been slashed up in the fall.
Add this one to "Things I Never Thought I'd See."
[x-posted to tumblr]