Re: Layers upon layers of sadness
Posted By: ns (210.54.230.31)
Date: Thursday, 13 September 2001, at 10:45 a.m.In Response To: Layers upon layers of sadness (Brian)
I was talking to my brother today about the bombings, and he told me about a MS (not that i'm picking on MicroSoft) flight simulator you can get for your PC. It involves flying around in any plane you want, and in many different locations you want, and in one option of the game you can fly around Manhatten Island. He was telling me about how when you get bored with the game, for fun you can decide to crash into the buildings.
He reasoned, maybe, that something as innocuous as a game like that could have been the impetus to stimulate the thoughts into the minds of the terrorists as to how to go about launching a terrorist attack.
He seemed quite adamant it ought not to be discounted as a possibility. So i asked him to come up with the goods and support his theory some more. Like, what actually happens in this game when you do crash into buildings? Curious himself he decided to look up the game on the internet. The best he could find on-line was various screenshots of the version of the game that involves Manhatten Island.
Because both of us were unsure how accurate the graphics were, i decided to surprize him a little and show him exactly what we ought to be identifying. With that i went to my book shelf and brought down a book out of a plastic sealer bag (just about all of my good books are stored like that, and most of them are good). It's a book by Bill Harris called "MANHATTEN A Photographic Journey". It's fairly large book measuring about 14"x10". It needs to be large because inside are various pictures of all the different buildings, sky scrapers, and street scenes of the city.
Of all the different presents my girlfriend at the time could have got me on her excited first overseas trip to the U.S. (and yes i did demand she ought to bring me back lots of pressies) she decided that book to be one of my main presents. My second most main present was to be a poster of one of the more historic corner buildings in the city, and my littlier presents were tee-shirts, and the even littlier ones were all the other teeshirts she bought for herself which i nicked of her and constantly wore instead.
Anyway, not that i'm into buildings, or have ever expressed an interest in buildings, to her, or anyone else at any stage. But yet, somehow, after knowing me very well she decided of all the things she saw, and of all the things she could get me, that would be one of the presents i'd most like. And very much i did like that present. She knew how i'd enjoy looking at all the big pics of all the different buildings, and streets and things in and around Manhatten.
My brother who's never really seen a proper look at the World Trade Centre Towers before, and one who is only very seldom likely to utter a compliment or priviledge about anything (and i tell you what, i mean that when i say it, he is very serious and too easily scoffs and criticizes). When he skimmed through the book, and scanned through the skyline of the various images, he was very surprized and was startled enough to exclaim aloud, just how surprized he was to realise just how very beautiful the those two building were, and how he had never realised that about them that way before, not even up to just recently.
I tell you what, the way he surprized me like that with his candidness made me choke and almost go into tears; not that he noticed though.. I sort of realised as well at the time, just how so much more precious my book now is, with pictures of the two towers, ascentuating the skyline, standing in their splendid glory.
Not that i love huge buildings, though. Only about a fortnight ago i remember thinking how frighteded i'd be, and how awful it would be to work in a huge skyscraper building like that. To be like a wee ant in some huge complex mound, one so much more bigger than yourself and greater than you in so many ways; one of which ways is how it may symbolise any various grandiose icons that the particular building one inhabits may represent.
Even though one can easily envy those who work out of such lavish offices which many of the building's rooms must have. There was something awful to me about being working part of a corporate culture machine building like that. But more importantly, why i was frightened is because i would not ever want to live and work in one of those building because of the vulnerability provided in an artificiality environment like that, and how generally unsafe it all is cos of how you're so much trapped in. Despite all this, i could still see and understand how wishfully seductive they were.Not long after, all these greatest fears (which funnily enough, i was having in bet, which makes sense i guess, on account of the large amounts of time i spend sleeping). Anyway, whilst i was dreaming my nightmare away, littlt did i realise how it was about to be lived out in horror and on an unimagineable scale.
You know, i wouldn't be surprized if they don't ever build big huge tall buildings anymore. And to tell the truth, i wouldn't really mind either.
In our local news, they highlighted the story of a NZ girl who was on the fiftyith floor of the building which the first plane hit. By the time she got to the bottom of the stairwell and on her way out of the doors, it was only a matter of around about a minute before the whole building came down. As she and others were panicking and screaming to get out, she said she and the rest trying to escape were greeted by some of the fit, most handsom, young, buck looking men of which so many together she had never set eyes on before. "New Yorks Finest" she described them as. She said about how they were so gentle and kind, offering their hands to people and reassuring them all on their way out. As she and her colleagues were all piling out, these firemen were all rushing up the stairs in a hurry to get in. Everybody felt relieved and comforted as they told and reassured everbody, that, "Everything was going to be fine".
As she ran away from the building, only far enough to watch it all come crashing down, all she could think of was the firemen rushing to get up, rushing to help, rushing to save everyone.
There are other memorable moments that spring clearly to my mind. One is of the lady who described the way her son called her from one of the planes, ten minutes before it crashed into the tower, maybe it was the first tower, i'm not sure. He heard his mothers voice and described himself to her with his full name, that is, sir name included. He wanted to ring her just to tell her how much he loved her, over and over again. When she relayed how he introduced himself to her with his full name, she said so with including a chuckle and high spirits that only a mother could have, knowing she was fortunate enough to her for the last time the emotion inside him, of her son's soon to by dying voice.
Another image which comes to mind, is that of the rescue workers. It included with them, the sight of a building in the process of toppling down. Escaping away from the foward ahead moving, tell-tale, billowing black cloud of dust and black smoke, the videographer, and those he were filming were all rushing away. As they rushed to shelter around the corner, you could see still in the frame, the sight of a fire fighter who was also moving away to evade the black curtain and following debri as well. But there was something uniquely different and defiant about him. Instead of running away, he merely walked casually to get to the corner. Mere meters behind him the black curtain of dust was catching him up.
He made it. He made it safe, alright.
He wasn't running away from anything. Cool, calm, collected, he was ready to turn back around, to anything and everything, to face it straight on.