The Aerie
Well that was my screed. I sat yesterday and watched the CBS documentary on the firefighters, including the updates as to what has come to pass for many of those featured since the original documentary aired in 2002. And I saw the footage again of that day five years ago.
In between I inevitably saw snippets of the ABC "docuganda", and the airing of these lies has to finally put to rest the accusation of a "liberal media." This all got my blood boiling.
This morning after the kids left for school I found myself home alone, at about 7:40 a.m., so I tuned into CNN's real-time replay of their coverage of 9/11. How amazing, to sit there in real time knowing that in five minutes, in three minutes, something was going to happen to make the world change. At least for me.
The coverage was so naïve, so stupid. I tuned in when the anchor was smiling, and laughing at some comment, just as they cut to break. I didn't catch when news was interrupted for word of the first crash - the feed kept sputtering in and out of existence. But there it was, the giant, slanted, airplane-sized gash in the first tower.
The anchor at this point became a man in severe denial, and a raging example of why good-looking idiots should not be in the anchor chair. "Is the plane still in the building?" he insisted on asking, as if he needed to see the nose sticking out one side, the tail out the other, and the wingtips protruding out the sides. And for the intervening 15 minutes, everyone kept trying to convince themselves that this was an accident. "Do planes often fly low over Manhattan?" he asked, and "Can you hear sirens, are authorities on their way?"
Then it happened. Ironically, my feed froze briefly with the image of the second jet poised about three jet-lengths away from the second tower. Then the feed resumed, and flame belched from the far side of the image.
At the time the anchor was talking to some eyewitness to the first impact, and this fellow did not quite see the second impact. The anchor was apparently not watching a live video feed either. So the fellow on the cell phone kept saying "I dunno, everyone's panicking," while the anchor kept repeating "There's been another explosion, the fuselage of the (first and only as far as he knew then) plane must have exploded!" He had no idea that a second plane had hit the other tower.
But I was watching at that time. I saw the second plane. I knew immediately and the world shifted right out from under my feet. One plane, that's an anomaly. That's a lone madman. Two planes? Two planes within minutes, hitting each tower? That's several orders of magnitude worse. That's war.
The first time that happened, I let loose an expletive that scared the kids more than the explosion.
By today, I had become numb. I saw the second plane hit, and all I thought about were the people who had died, and the lies and disappointments that have followed.
Devoted readers of this blog might remember my entry from September 8th, 2002, when I told the story of finding the "Missing" poster for Dr. Sneha Philip - who was not, as it turned, lost on September 11th, buit on September 10th.
In reviewing the events of 9/11 today, I came across a careful review of her case by Mark Fass of the New York Law Journal. It adds, rather than detracts, from the ambiguity of the disappearance of Dr. Sneha Philip, including as it does accusations of alcoholism and marital problems.
Oddly, I found it comforting. Because these problems in her life open up the possibility that she fled, that she disappeared, rather than that she died. A woman with a perfect life has no reason to flee: a woman with problems may have decided on September 10th to catch a bus out of town and leave her life behind. If she had, her disappearance would have been made all the more clean by the tragic coincidence of 9/11.
Do I believe that's what happened? I can't really make myself do so. But I can imagine it happening. I can imagine her living somewhere else, a new life, leaving behind a grieving family but at least still being alive. Being capable at any moment of changing her mind, of calling her mother, of writing a note to say "I'm okay," even if she never goes home.
That would he heartless. It would be selfish. But at least, in that circumstance, she would still be alive.
Posted by Albatross at September 11, 2006 2:32 PM | TrackBack