While typing this blog, I am watching a Chinese drama, Forensic Heroes 2, on DVD.. At the end of each episode, when the credits are being shown, one of my housemates would walk to his room to use his computer and his friend would follow him. Within a few minutes they will come walking back downstairs as the three-minute theme song starts playing, which signifies the start of another episode. At one point another housemate, who came back from the Arc, enters from the front door and stood there and watch the show for a few minutes before continuing into his room in the back.
Currently in the show is a crime scene. A civilian is holding on to a hand grenade that he disarmed from a terrorist, but the safety pin has already been released and he’s holding on to the striker lever. Polices arrive and barricade the area around the estimated explosion radius. One cop walks next to him to start a conversation with him to keep him calm; the other polices are staying at the borderline of the barricades. It turns out that the civilian was in a bomb squad and had experiences with the hand grenade that he is currently holding. He suggests to the police that the barricades should be moved 5 meters further for the public’s safety; the cop relays the message and then the barricade is moved.
What surprised me is not a civilian risking his life holding on to a grenade nor is that only one police near him. What surprised me the most is that unlike the police who try to stay far away, the public would gather around the barricade to watch as closely as they can. If the barricades were not readjusted, and the hand grenade accidentally exploded, then a lot of innocent people would have been injured if not killed.
People gathering due to curiosity can disrupt your plans (like my housemate) or it can be downright dangerous (like at a bombsite). No matter the reason, it’s good that people’s lives return to normal after they disperse from the situation.
1 comment:
I really like how you draw your two 'points of dispersal' together at the end of your post. My question is this: what happens when dispersal *is* the norm? In other words, what happens when people's day-to-day lives consist of grouping and then dispersing, and there is nothing besides? Perhaps in an age of hand grenades and television dramas, these are the only two options. Where can a human neither group nor disperse?
Post a Comment