September 11, 2008
Twelve months after the fall of the twin towers of the World Trade Center in New York on this day seven short years ago, every publication of merit on earth ran first anniversary pieces: Straightforward mourning, introspective recollections, retaliation-dressed-up-as-war reports, the politics, policies, rewards and losses of bloodshed, and so on.
David Usborne wrote a piece for The Independent, though, which still haunts me to this day:
"There must be worse things for a person to see, but I can't think of many. I did not, I should say, see any of them hit the ground. There were smaller buildings in the foreground. I am profoundly thankful for that. Yet there was so much terror bound up in watching just one of those people drop. There was time to think so many thoughts: that could be me (I had dreams of falling for months afterwards), and what kind of horror forced the person to take this route to obliteration? And above all, I am watching someone who is alive now, but in a few seconds will be dead. And he or she knows it."
The archived article is here.
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