Shopping centre tragedy

Every so often we are given a very sombre reminder of death. Usually we just see it through the windows of our television screens and another person murdered or killed in a car crash is another headline on the news. Last week, I arrived at our local shopping centre (where I go nearly every day) to find that someone had just committed suicide by jumping off the balcony on the fifth floor). Apparently some poor person had tried to talk him out of it and it was a good twenty minutes before he jumped, which gave police time to erect a tent, but hundreds of people witnessed what happened and no doubt are extremely traumatised as a result. It left me feeling physically sick and cross-examining in my mind how someone could be so desperate to end their life that they would do it in a shopping centre full of people on a Wednesday afternoon. My sympathy turned to anger at what cafe waiters, check out girls and shoppers (not to mention any children) will have to live with for the rest of their lives. I am aware of the sensitivity of such an issue but the selfishness of suicide, especially in such a public place, has left me reeling.

However, these emotions do not even compare with what I felt when I discovered people were filming this desperate act and subsequently posting their footage on You Tube. Gross indecency of the very worst kind - that we have supposedly become so immune to death that it merely serves to provide entertainment of the sickest, most depraved sort. It was not a day I wished to remember.