Terrorist. Terrorism. Terror attacks.

We bandy the words about so often, and so casually, that they stop meaning much. As outrages become more....outrageous, it all becomes oh-so-familiar. But we forget what they're meant to denote.

Terror.

Breath-denying, sweat-inducing, irrational-hatred-forming paranoia.
The kind that makes you take longing looks at your home whenever you leave it.
The kind that makes you hold on to those you hug for just those few moments longer.
The kind that gives your eyes a life of their own in public, making them jump in their sockets.
The kind that makes you shout suddenly at people for not doing a complete recce of the area they've just entered.
The kind that comes from the mass hysteria that suddenly explodes into being as everybody else realises what you've known so long.

...that you're not (as) safe anymore.

That the travels you so monotonously undertook could at any moment be exposed for the unprotected targets they are.

That the doors you waltzed through could now be treated with the same contempt by those who would willingly introduce your body to the scorched path of a few rounds of ammunition.

That there is no understanding those who would willingly hunt you down to casually destroy you, and that your only hope in escaping them is to be luckier than others.

And that there's a world of a difference between being afraid, and being terrified.


.....frikkin' terrific.