Looking the reaper in the eye

Last night I watched a documentary about the Beslan school seige (http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4187924.stm) . It was harrowing stuff, very graphically told with footage from the seige and first hand accounts from the children who were there. It is hard to understand what went through the minds of the terrorists. It is one thing to plant a bomb and indiscriminately kill, but the deliberate slaying of these children was a whole new level.

One particularly horrifying moment was a girl of 5 or 6 who told how she had escaped from the school building. Having been deprived of water for 3 days her eyes lit up when she saw 3 schoolmates drinking from a stand-pipe. Before she could join them a terrorist fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the children and killed them.

My mind cannot begin to conceive of what the children of Beslan went through. Only twice have I thought I was about to die, and in both cases the fear was fairly quickly extinguished. But to live with that fear for 3 days, to witness horrific acts of violence culminating in a massacre...those poor poor children.

We live in a f*cked up world. I only hope that those kids can grow up without being too scarred.