No Fly Guy

I learned about the attack on the Christchurch mosques while I was wandering through Parliament grounds. I’d been at a meeting that day at the Royal Society Te Apārangi, just a few blocks away, but had hoped to catch the tail-end of the School Strike 4 Climate demonstration. But by the time I’d walked over to Parliament, the crowds had gone. I opened Twitter on my phone to see if the march had moved on. I was stunned.

A few minutes later, I found myself standing in front of the steps up to the Beehive on Bowen St, staring at messages strikers had chalked on the concrete. “Love People”, “Kaitiaki”, “We Stand Together”, they had written. A young woman, maybe 15 or 16, saw that I was crying and handed