Mid-Air

Mid-Air
The terrorist attack reverberates through my mind echoing & distorting as it passes to & fro.
I hope those people who fell (did they jump or were they pushed?) attained the rapture of the heights before they reached a velocity of 40 mph. I hope if they were not unconscious that they dreamed they were flying, that they marveled (as we always do on the heights) at the view. For flight, for such a panorama. Would it be worth it to die? Like a bird...
That's the least bad of my thoughts. For, given the list of ways to die that day, what would have been better: burned in a 1500° fire, blown into pieces of meat (the shockwave kills you instanter, right? You'd have no awareness...) or bleeding to death from box-cutter slash wounds.
Um, no. On the whole, I think I'd rather fly.

Then there's the boggle of what it is like to have a jet come in the window at work. To look up from your desk & see it coming. Or to be on the other side of the building & hear screams & then...the sound or the force of the blow.
Don't underestimate what adrenalin can do. If it can't save you, it can deliver you, I know from experience. The mercy hormone.

OK. Then, alongside the unworthy relief of not having a dear one lost, is the grudging admiration at the cleverness of the plan, at the fact that it worked. That essentially, 9 or 10 guys brought down two 100+ story buildings. And worst of all, I never liked those buildings, thought they were ugly. Too tall, looked like a behemoth stack of crackers, a pack of saltines stood on end. Towers of Babel.

And down below that is the Imp that loves destruction for its own sake. The bigger the better. Or maybe I'm not human? (Then what?)

And there may be more. I find it hard to settle to work. Oh yes, there's also "Oh great, this is going to be bad for my writing."

And now I can't stand to contemplate my own demise – it's all a bit too much, you know. Just too damn much death. Suck it up.
BM *Bucks 9/19/01

What are we for? How will we achieve our goal?
I don't think I have my
Too much imagination. That's what I do have. Does art redeem anything? Maybe the artist.
I turn to face my monster. It's a Minotaur all right. That's a bull's head—but doesn't that bull's head resemble me, just a little? I mean if I had a son by a bull, isn't that what he would look like? Definitely feet like mine. Well.

And so, the thoughts come back like a mangy black mutt that you have chased away more than once. It’s obviously decided to adopt you, and no matter how many times you drive him off, he keeps slinking back & lying down at your feet. A stray? He's plainly chosen you.

All those action movies. They attempt to create the exact illusion of, say, a 767 coming through your office wall – so your morbid imagination has some help in making real what no one can tell – the last moment before your violent death. Or—what happens before you find yourself standing in the window leaning out into the clarity of morning. And thinking, "Okay, maybe...I...can...fly.

I sent out cards & letters & paid bills & wrote 1/2 page on Julia's fieldwork. And washed my pillow & quilt. Accomplishments.
BM *Bux 9/20/01