(no subject)

[rabidsamfan]

There was nothing on the radio that morning. Just the usual DJ's making the usual jokes.

The guy on the bus told me the news like it was almost a joke -- like the plane that had hit the first tower was small, and fairly harmless.

I got to work and we put on the tv. I honestly can't tell you if the second plane had hit or not, because they kept re-running footage over and over. I remember the small dark dots that were people jumping. I remember the tower collapsing. The pictures of the dust cloud enveloping street after street.

The cut-ins from Washington, the news casters fretting about the planes that were missing.

The gradual realisation that this wasn't an accident.

I remember watching the sky for days afterwards -- the extraordinary clarity of the weather, the silences that struck you even in the heart of the city, and especially near my home, which is blocks away from Logan Airport, where the planes had started that morning.

I remember the first plane I saw in the air, however many days later, coming in low for a landing at Hanscom Field and the horrid knot in my stomach that it gave me.

So many people lost, from so many countries of the world.

I still don't understand.

But I remember.