While having lunch today on the terrace of a resto near to my pied-a-terre in Paris, there were the sounds of someone screaming in a nearby doorway. Suddenly the door swung open and a man in his late twenties walked out, maintaining an even and calm gait as he marched to the top of the street and disappeared. A half-minute later, an Asiatic man in his late twenties came staggering out, holding his face. Several of us on the terrace were immediately on our feet, helping him into a chair. Someone asked him what happened. He explained he was leaving his apartment and a man loitering in the entryway set upon him and simply slugged him. Immediately I was back in London in 1983 walking up the Cromwell Road to a meetin when a man around forty came jogging towards me and then, out of nowhere, punched me in the stomach before dashing away. I certainly didn’t know this madman. And besides having the wind out of me the attack was so out-of-nowhere that I was stunned for some time afterwards. As the Asiatic gentleman told me today when I asked him if he knew why this stranger had slugged him: ‘I think he just wanted to hit someone’. Which, of course, makes such a random attack even that more unnerving.
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 15:45:59 +0000
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