The terror of the Sydney stabbings is because it took place in the most ... trends now
Autumn in Sydney is the best time of the year, so it's no surprise Ashlee Good was having an idyllic Saturday.
Walking in the sunshine with baby daughter Harriet in her arms, she realised she was wearing the exact same outfit she'd worn nine months earlier when she was still heavily pregnant. She snapped a picture and uploaded it to Instagram alongside the picture she'd taken last July, shortly before she went into labour. '9 months in vs 9 months out,' she captioned the happy snaps.
And then, because it truly was a gorgeous day, with the surf pumping down the road at Bondi beach and the smell of barbecued sausages wafting from kids' footy grounds and the clarity of light that makes all of us who live here think it's the best spot in the world, Ashlee also uploaded a cute video of adorable Harriet sitting in her car seat nibbling on a piece of bread. As the sunbeams danced on the little girl's face, the song My Girl by The Temptations played in the background.
In years to come, those images – proud moments captured by a loving mum – will mean more than Ashlee could have ever imagined. Just hours later mother and daughter were stabbed in the horrific attack in the Westfield shopping centre in Sydney's Bondi Junction. With blood pouring from her wounds, the stricken mum's final act was to reach into the pushchair to scoop up Harriet, who had been stabbed in the stomach, and thrust her into the arms of two men. In shock, and with her life ebbing away, the only thing that mattered to the 38-year-old osteopath was that her beloved only child was safe.
Ashlee Good, the 38-year-old who died while trying to protect her baby daughter Harriet
As baby Harriet fights for her life after surgery, with her dad, Dan Flanagan, by her bedside, what's chilling about the stabbing rampage that killed six and left several others in a critical condition, is that it occurred in the most ordinary and relatable of settings.
We all shop. We send our teenage kids off to Saturday jobs at Sephora or McDonald's or to make tea in the hair salons in these huge retail centres. We give our youngsters their first taste of independence by leaving them to wander with their friends.
Or, as I did that same afternoon at another Westfield, as the stabbing frenzy was taking place on the other side of the harbour, we separate and arrange to meet half an hour later. 'Love the nail colour,' I said to my daughter, as I left her having a manicure while I returned a shirt to TK Maxx. It's inconceivable that in that simplest, most prosaic of moments, I could've been waving goodbye to her forever.
The stories emerging from Saturday are hard to process because it's a tragedy that could've happened to any of us. Those killed were not in a war zone. They weren't in an American school where random killings are the sad consequence of weak gun laws. They weren't in a skyscraper or at a concert where cowardly killers know they can wreak the most damage. Rather they happened in a shopping mall amidst scenes so ordinary they could play out anywhere in the world. A dad taking his kids shopping for gifts for their mum's birthday. A mum sending her 11-year-old son back to Woolworths to grab one supermarket item she'd forgotten. Teenagers marking the first day of the autumn school holidays by trying on Selena Gomez's new blusher range.
And then into that ease, that normality, comes a scuffle, a movement out of the corner of an eye that doesn't chime with the rhythms and routines of shopping. Some see a man with a knife. They start running. Others freeze. One shopper will later say she felt a sharp pain in her back. Only later will she learn it came from a knife. And then there's the panic. Is there one attacker? What if there's more? And what if there's a bomb? It was only six years ago that this city suffered the horrific siege in the Lindt café where an Islamic State-inspired gunman, believed to be carrying a bomb, kept 18 hostages trapped for 17 hours. Two lost their lives.
Police are continuing to investigate at the scene of the mass stabbing at Bondi Junction in Sydney, which left six dead and several others in a critical condition
On Saturday most ran into shops where staff raced to slide down the aluminium roller doors to keep those inside safe. Some hid in bathrooms or stairwells. And because there are multiple levels on this flagship Westfield some grabbed their phones
