#Unite @ Montreal

Aux sombres héros de l’amer
Qui ont su traverser les océans du vide
A la memoire de nos frères
Dont les sanglots si longs faisaient couler l’acide...
— Noir Désir

Text and photography by Patrick La Roque

The dream is always the same...tornadoes appearing in the distance, slowly filling up the sky. I sit by the window, aware of the oncoming darkness and cold breath of the thunderclouds as I watch in silence, a witness to the gathering storm.

Helpless.

Today I stood with children and grandmothers, fathers and sisters and brothers and friends, all united against tyranny. I heard the courage of a people united in the broken song of an old woman, her voice sad but strong, shaken but defiant, ready to push back against the long nights of terror and barbarians.

As I write these words over 120 people have died in Paris, slaughtered by strangers, by neighbours, by their own. But today we faced the tornadoes, shoulder to shoulder.

No more.