Paris, avec gasse

It's all fun and games until they gas you in the metro.

Bound from the Latin Quarter to see fam in the suburbs of Paris, we board the last car at the far end of the metro station platform and wait for it to start. There's yelling outside the window across from me, and two men tackle another and throw him hard to the ground. One of the tacklers faces the train, puts up his hands and yells "Police!" At that moment, the car is filled with some sort of cloud and my eyes, face, and lungs feel like they are on fire. We are being gassed. I don't know if it's pepper spray from outside or some other gas, but all I do know is that I'm in an enclosed space, burning up, and choking. I'm afraid to breathe, take one last gulp of air (repeat performance from when my condo burned down), open the car door and hike it across the platform. I need to breathe again, so I do, pulling in more gas. Some of the people are still in the train, some on the platform, many with the same red, tearing eyes. Many are running out but some are standing still, watching the police action. I guess the gas was stronger down where we were, but need to get to air. I'm somewhat alarmed but not freaking out. Mostly I'm kind of fascinated, wondering if this is it, will I be finished in a subway gassing? Kind of fascinated by the whole thing really and also feeling the animal in me escaping for air. Eric catches up to me and says he thinks it was probably pepper spray and we hike it the rest of the way up the stairs and into fresh air. We sit down on the stairwell and just breathe. I kind of wish I had turned around on that platform and taken a picture of the police action, or at least turned the camera on myself and gotten one of my lava floe eyes. (Actually my French relatives later told me the police shot wasn't such a good idea in France.) Anyway, there you are.

Two days later we were headed home. Police action around abandoned luggage in Charles de Gaulle delayed our first flight and another police action in Frankfurt almost delayed the second. Strange energy in the air that weekend, bien sur.