I cannot get over it

This story of Patrizio Galli (see the posting of the 6th) is affecting me more than I would have thought.



I knew four people who committed suicide, and two of them quite well, and in two other occasions, I discovered somebody who had attempted to commit suicide.  Also, a very close friend of mine died in a car accident when she was barely thirty years old.  Therefore, it is not new for me to have to accept the violent death of somebody I know.  And yet, this time it is different.

Somehow, I can understand suiciders. People don’t fall into depression in a fraction of a second.  In a sense, you prepare yourself to the eventuality that one day they might try it seriously enough to succeed, despite the best efforts of everyone who cares about them.

And car accidents, unfortunately, are a possibility that is always present in the back of our mids.  At least, they are in mine.

But a murder is something else.  I know that it did happen, but I still cannot imagine the Patrizio I know raising a monster of a gun and kill Catia.  And he had to load it first.  And then he fired at her five times, when I am sure that a single shot would have been enough.  He just left in the drum a single bullet, to terminate his own life without having to reload.

This throws my perception of humanity into disarray.  I had seen on TV similar cases, but I had thought that, somehow, I could have not had anything in common with those perpretators. I implicitly believed that I could have not possibly befriended them.

Then Patrizio.

Does it mean that everybody can do what he did?  Almost certainly not.  Could I do what he did?  I don’t think so.  And yet perhaps everybody, pushed strongly enough, can do unimaginable things.  It is a disturbing thought.  I hope and trust that one day I will be able to shake it off, but not yet.