Night of Terror: May 31-June 1, 2013 in Istanbul

Little girl.  Pink dress.  Gas mask.  I caught sight of her flitting past in the Osmanbey metro station, and I was immediately filled with dread.  When we emerged from the station, there was a palpable tension in the air.  We walked toward Taksim, my stomach churning.  Dread.  Dread.  Sunset and shadows and a strange smell on the air and dread.  And then it happened.  Hundreds of people running toward us.  Surgical masks and people coughing.  Found an alcove, a doorway, and paused to think and breathe.

"Do you speak English?  Do you speak English?" a frantic voice next to me was pleading.  

"Yes."

"Is it safe?  Are we safe?"

"I don't know."

"What should we do?"

"I don't know."

We waited.  People were running.  And then we saw a mass of smoke burst from the ground down the street.

"Cover your face!"  I screamed to the two women, two tourists from Dubai, who were huddled beside me.

"Oh my God Oh my God Oh my God..."

The streets were cleared and we were left feeling exposed, four people naked on the sidewalk, perched in a garbage hole next to Cumhurriyet Avenue.  A water cannon slowly rolled past.  I felt like its eye was on me, and I tried to be invisible.  It passed.  I breathed.  Its stalk swerved and the eye hammered water down on someone a little further up the street.  I concentrated hard, hard, hard on invisibility while a pack of riot police tramped past us.  Like they were hunting.  They looked at us. 

Invisible.  Invisible.  Invisible.  I am.

"Matt, put the camera down."

"No."  He was right.  Seconds passed.

"Put the camera down!  They have guns!  They see us!"  He dropped the camera.

"They don't want to shoot us.  Just tear gas."  To the two women, concentrating on believing my own words.

Then I felt my face burning.  And my eyes.  And throat.

"Cover your face!"  They used their hands.  I buried into my t-shirt.

Panic from the two women.

"Can we go after they pass?  Can we go?  Is it safe?" 

To comfort them gave me some strength.  I needed someone to focus my energy on.  They needed someone to guide them, tell them what to do, tell them it was going to be ok.

We decided to help them to their hotel.  They were clutching onto me for dear life.  Somehow they felt safer with us because we live here.  People look for safety everywhere, everywhere, whether or not it only exists in their minds.

We didn't know what we were doing either.  Matt kept the camera rolling.

Blindly, we headed toward Taksim, eyes burning.  Suddenly, it was hard to see.  Through the burning tears sliding down my face, I saw a shop and stumbled in.  We wandered around blindly for some time while our eyes cleared, and the people in the shops offered us lemons for our eyes, which counteracts the tear gas.  We cleared ourselves.  Enough.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=v4o9nKqHxIs

Back into the fray.  Twisting, turning, dodging, guiding.  I put my arm around one of the women.  Sometimes the other seized my arm.  Sirens, tear gas, crowds, chanting, police.

Found the Hilton, usually an obvious landmark, but now the center of a swirl of confusion.  Two strange women grabbed me, hugged me tightly, and "Thank you!  God bless!  God bless."  Goodbye.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1LyLRbCAyuU&feature=youtu.be

The dread I had was now full-blown fear.  We couldn't go back.  There were hundreds of riot police between us and home.  Matt texted our friend Melanie:

"Are you home?  We're in the neighborhood and gassed."

She told us to come over.  We looked further down Cumhurriyet toward Gezi Park and Taksim.  A mantle of tear gas hung over the street in front of us.  We couldn't go that way.  We scuttled around corners and back streets, with the sound of chanting, singing, rattling looming in the dark on other streets.

Finally we staggered onto Melanie's street and there was anger in the air.  Some people limped toward us.  Some women were running, gripping each other for dear life.  I could see the police standing up at the end of the street.  And I could feel the potential energy, suspended in the air, of a canister of tear gas flying at us.  It didn't happen, but the possibility hung in the air by my ear.  Suspended.  The street writhed, now galvanized with fear and anger. 

There's her door.  Make for it.  Chaos, energy, and stand-offs waiting for retaliation.  At the door.  Find her name.  Press the doorbell.  Buzz.  We're in.

And we're in for a night of horrors playing out just below the windows.  Melanie welcomes us graciously into her home and we hunker down.  We can't tear ourselves away from the window. But then sometimes we stumble back and cover our faces in lemon.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hDDx1cILDAo

A constant barrage of tear gas.

Police raids on shops.

Police beating protesters.

Women screaming at police from upper windows.

Helicopters circling around with spotlights here there everywhere.  To intimidate.  It works.

Clanging banging chanting singing corrugated metal fence pots-and-pans voices.

Kicking back tear gas shells at the police.

Building a barricade of garbage.

Lighting it on fire?

2 AM so much tear gas you can't see the sky.  Burning eyes despite closed windows.

3 AM cacophony corrugated metal fence and arms raised.

Pop crack boom scream yell.

Sleep only comes for snatches of minutes when protesters get gassed, get quiet.

Mostly I am lying awake all night, listening to the rise and fall of conflict just outside the window. Light from helicopters illuminating the room.  Trying to keep myself from jumping up to the window every time I hear a crash or an explosion.  Other faces hover behind darkened windows across the street.  Occasionally we lock eyes.

6 AM quiet. Finally.  Uneasy sleep.

8 AM.  Cleanup crew.  Sweeping cleaning throwing away.

This morning, the streets of Istanbul were littered with lemons and tear gas shells.  A smell still lingered.  

In Taksim, tear gas seemed to burn endlessly.  It was quiet but for a distant roar of voices on Istiklal.  Shattered glass by the trolley tracks.  Tear gas shells... everywhere.  Police, gas masks hanging limply at their sides or under chins, text messages to their mothers, drinking tea, smoking cigarettes and staring at the ground.

Taksim was shattered, splintered, smashed, in tatters, a war zone the morning after.  I looked on the ground and saw a small wreath of flowers for a little girl's hair.  It was pressed flat into the pavement, like between the pages of a book.  Sun fell down on us brightly, angrily, ominously.  Smoke was tiredly curling out of dumpsters.  We turned away and began the long, hot march to the nearest open metro station, the sounds of pots and pans and human voices clanging in the distance.