Playing the random "rage against society" angle, I was once again prepared to persue my goal of writing a fictional piece..........this time on a mass muderer type, but once again my efforts were thwarted since the truth apparently is indeed stranger than fiction. On the very same day, September 13, 2-006, world wide papers papers reported on still another mass shooting, and this one also occurred in Montreal. Early accounts were as follows:

On September 13, a lone gunman attacked a Montreal college. Dressed entirely in black, he had "a stone cold face" and opened fire without warning, eyewitnesses said. About 20 people were wounded in the attack on Dawson College in the city center. One woman may have died later in hospital and several other victims were listed in critical condition.

Witnesses said the man began his random assault outside the college before walking through the front door and continuing to shoot inside before police fatally shot him. At times, he hid behind vending machines before emerging to take aim. "He said nothing. He had a stone cold face, there was nothing on his face, he didn't say anything, he didn't yell out any slogans or anything. He just started opening fire. He was a cold blooded killer," said student Soher Marous. One distraught student said she had been outside smoking a cigarette with her friends when the attack began. "There was a guy walking in a black trenchcoat and huge black boots with this retarded haircut and he had a huge machine gun. He was walking down (the street) in broad daylight with a gun -- no one says anything to him -- and then he started shooting," she told CBC television. One woman said the shooter was white, about 19, and looked like "the stereotype, with the long black trench coat and all the studs and piercing's and stuff like that."

Police said the 25-year-old attacker was from the Montreal area, but provided little other information. His car was still at the school, and police were searching his apartment.

Once again defeat was snatched from what I hoped would be literary victory. One again, I was stopped in my tracks. This time, rather than try to do something different, I'll stick with the pathos of boxing and pieces dealing with the philosophy of Ayn Rand. There simply is no way anyone can stop, much less slow down the real killings that are going on out there. And I cannot keep up with them.

Ted Sares can be reached at tedsares@adelphia.net