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<<2003-02-01 - 2:29 p.m.>>

Seven people? I saw the whole world burn.

The debris of the Columbia fell on a world that will remain unchanged despite the impact.

When the Towers fell (my towers, my city, my landmarks, my compass points, upward boundaries of my child world), the whole world felt the shock. Things changed, for the better or the worse. A bold-face punctuation mark in the paragraph of world affairs.

And my generation of New Yorkers will be defined by that day. We will discuss it with each new friend, and many acquaintances. It places us all. The sick racing chronology of it's a joke, it's an accident—oh my God— . (The random first thoughts that friends have reported: what will they do with the souvenirs now? Is the Lit homework still due?) The hushed interim between impact and collapse. Where were you between?

I was rushing down Madison from morning coffee in a free period. With Avi and Kerry. We couldn't see the smoke yet. But we all saw it for days after that, the thick viscous cloud that hung malevolantly in everyone's sightline, that dusted the streets of my neighborhood in ash.

My generation of New Yorkers is ruined for disasters. The quota is full. Find someone who wasn't there. Every time a government official addresses a shocked nation, we will be back in that day. It is waiting in our heads, on endless subconscious loop.

It all comes back. It is all so ready to come back. The nauseous flurry and its strange coexistence with the flat nothingness. The pragmatics: twelve hundred children in one building, all frantically trying to contact family on cellular phones which have no supporting network, many from outer boroughs to which they have no access. Solve for least possible trauma. The way the hours passed unmarked, unaware, the way we stared blankly at the television, out the window, waiting to see where we could not go. Ridiculous Jade, making up save-the-world lies. The way the rules no longer existed. Sitting on the floor of a Rite Aid on Ninth Avenue, sweeping the contents of the shelves into buckets to be hauled back to the triage center at no charge. The picture of my hands as they sorted boxes at the triage center. The cloud, the cloud, the cloud.

My mother on jury duty, evacuated after the first crash, standing frozen on a perilous street corner staring up at the second. Then watching it give up.

The fragility of plexiglass and steel. The furious grace of the fall.

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