Esprit d'escalier

I didn’t sleep at all well one night recently in the war zone and awoke to the syncopated sound of what was intended as a 21-gun salute to honour the country's victors in a war against recent foreign invaders. For security reasons, I had not been allowed to attend and had spent the night catching up with an old friend instead. As I rubbed my eyes, I took in the semi-darkness. My t-shirt was wet: wet with sweat. Then I began to hear some other sounds. They were of different weapons. What could have been machine gun-fire. Sporadic. Whatever it was, it was not far away. I stood up and slowly opened the shutters. The machine gun fire, different again, was more intense now. I knew something was up. I switched on the TV. Almost immediately, it was mentioned that the feed I had just missed of the nearby parade had suddenly been pulled. Something was definitely up. There was talk of the president having been whisked away and then they showed some replayed footage. What looked at first like a long distance, low budget animation of the cover of Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Heart’s Club Band filled the screen. A variety of strangely disconnected and theatrically attired people were sitting in the shade. Ambassadors, dignitaries, ministers, soldiers. Suddenly you saw some people fall forwards, others disappear towards the rear of the stand. It was redolent of the assassination of Egypt’s President Sadat. I dressed quickly and to the sound of a swarm of helicopters made my way to the security of the main compound. I felt uneasy, unlucky, faintly fatalistic. I also felt like I should be writing this all down in my blog; I should be finding the implausible link between the drama of the present moment and the battles and survivals of an artist. I say this only because I am looking at the artist right now and it was impossible to write about this from the war zone. Presently, she is working, her expression serious, and I can feel the explosions in her head. She will make it to the security of the main compound.