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Sep. 11th, 2002
Wind and Flames and Dust and Echoes
Sep. 11th, 2002 11:07 amI'd been up very late the night before writing a book about what happens after the world ends but life continues. At a few minutes after nine, the phone rang. The machine screened it. From Manhattan, K's voice said, "Get up. Turn on CNN. Something big is happening downtown."
I'm up on the early side to take care of some email I couldn't get online to answer last night. I find I don't have the focus to answer it anyway; instead I post a cranky wasp here, written last night. I live near an airport; the sound of aircraft is continual, and normally I tune it out, but this morning I notice it, am surprised to perceive it as ominous. At 9:06 the phone rings. Caller ID says it's K calling from work. I pick up and say, "Do not tell me that something big just happened downtown."
I couldn't process the images on the television. They looked like the special effects from a disaster film. After I got through on the phone to as many people as I could, I went outside, shared a grim nod of greeting with a neighbor, went out behind the houses, to the water, to where I could see Manhattan--real light reflected from real objects to my real eyes, not filtered through a lens.
I can't bring myself to tune in to the television coverage. I go outside, share a somber greeting with a neighbor, and walk out behind the houses, to the water, to the place where I saw the first tower fall. To pay my respects to the dead, to say a prayer for the ones who loved them in this life.
It was a crystal-clear day, the kind that can't decide whether it's late summer or early fall. The water was luminous, still. The skies were silent. The skyline was burning.
It's a blustery day, warm as summer but restless as autumn. The water's current is audible, its surface whitecapped. Oblivious birds, some born in this last year, circle and keen. A flag at half-mast whips violently in the wind, making the sound of flames.
There was a crowd of people gathered, staring at the towers. Some had climbed up onto the bulwark to see over the chain-link fence. Others stood by their cars and trucks. A radio was turned up high, a reporter restating the confused facts as we already understood them. Suddenly the black smoke pouring from the towers in the distance was engulfed, eclipsed, by a billowing cloud of gray. It seemed to start from the ground and blossom up. The man on the radio cried, "Oh my god, oh my god." Someone in the crowd, someone from this town of cops and construction workers and firemen and steamfitters and EMTs and plumbers, said, "Oh shit, oh shit. The guys up in those floors." Someone else, nearer to me, very quietly, said, "I don't think they could have gotten everybody out."
There's no one standing by the water. There's one guy sitting in a pickup truck. His radio is on, but all I can hear is a low murmur of voices. We stare out over the water, separate. There's a haze over the city; the skyline is invisible. The town recycling truck rumbles out from the dirt road to the left, raising a thick, gritty cloud of dust. I close my eyes until it settles.
I cannot comprehend the number of people whose dying was, to me, a faraway billow of gray. The shock of it drives me away from the sight that I came here to see with my own eyes. All I can think is all those people, all those people and, selfishly, inanely, my home, this is my home, what they've done to my home. I walk home, through the clear still day.
No one else has come here while I held my private vigil and the pickup-truck guy held his. The wind is rising, sweeping through the trees like surf, whistling in crevices. Inside it is the queerest stillness. I walk home, through the wind and the echoes.
I'm up on the early side to take care of some email I couldn't get online to answer last night. I find I don't have the focus to answer it anyway; instead I post a cranky wasp here, written last night. I live near an airport; the sound of aircraft is continual, and normally I tune it out, but this morning I notice it, am surprised to perceive it as ominous. At 9:06 the phone rings. Caller ID says it's K calling from work. I pick up and say, "Do not tell me that something big just happened downtown."
I couldn't process the images on the television. They looked like the special effects from a disaster film. After I got through on the phone to as many people as I could, I went outside, shared a grim nod of greeting with a neighbor, went out behind the houses, to the water, to where I could see Manhattan--real light reflected from real objects to my real eyes, not filtered through a lens.
I can't bring myself to tune in to the television coverage. I go outside, share a somber greeting with a neighbor, and walk out behind the houses, to the water, to the place where I saw the first tower fall. To pay my respects to the dead, to say a prayer for the ones who loved them in this life.
It was a crystal-clear day, the kind that can't decide whether it's late summer or early fall. The water was luminous, still. The skies were silent. The skyline was burning.
It's a blustery day, warm as summer but restless as autumn. The water's current is audible, its surface whitecapped. Oblivious birds, some born in this last year, circle and keen. A flag at half-mast whips violently in the wind, making the sound of flames.
There was a crowd of people gathered, staring at the towers. Some had climbed up onto the bulwark to see over the chain-link fence. Others stood by their cars and trucks. A radio was turned up high, a reporter restating the confused facts as we already understood them. Suddenly the black smoke pouring from the towers in the distance was engulfed, eclipsed, by a billowing cloud of gray. It seemed to start from the ground and blossom up. The man on the radio cried, "Oh my god, oh my god." Someone in the crowd, someone from this town of cops and construction workers and firemen and steamfitters and EMTs and plumbers, said, "Oh shit, oh shit. The guys up in those floors." Someone else, nearer to me, very quietly, said, "I don't think they could have gotten everybody out."
There's no one standing by the water. There's one guy sitting in a pickup truck. His radio is on, but all I can hear is a low murmur of voices. We stare out over the water, separate. There's a haze over the city; the skyline is invisible. The town recycling truck rumbles out from the dirt road to the left, raising a thick, gritty cloud of dust. I close my eyes until it settles.
I cannot comprehend the number of people whose dying was, to me, a faraway billow of gray. The shock of it drives me away from the sight that I came here to see with my own eyes. All I can think is all those people, all those people and, selfishly, inanely, my home, this is my home, what they've done to my home. I walk home, through the clear still day.
No one else has come here while I held my private vigil and the pickup-truck guy held his. The wind is rising, sweeping through the trees like surf, whistling in crevices. Inside it is the queerest stillness. I walk home, through the wind and the echoes.