story257.xml

story257.xml

born-digital

story

yes

no

2002-03-15

I?ve been to the pinnacle. I?ve looked down a thousand feet, a straight plunge of certain death. I used to live there, not in the dead zone but in the city itself, in a small apartment with too many people. It wasn?t quite a dead zone then, nor was the city a united one. Indeed, back then the nation was petty and its motives transient. When was that? I was a child, I had poor recollection of the times except for brief moments of clarity that etch themselves into your mind. I was five, I believe, and still suffering the aftereffects two years previous of the loss of one of my five senses, not quite compensating yet with increase in the rest of them. I?ve got other senses now, but that?s a different story for some other discussion.

We lived in Queens, the four of us. At least that?s what my fogged memory leads me to believe, the four of us. My grandmother, who was and continued to be a city councilwoman in that borough until her retirement a couple years ago, owned the apartment and graciously let us stay there in spite of the fact that there was not really any place for two young children and their mother to stay. We were there for a year, with the vague intention of curing my hearing loss via alternative medicine, which involved sticking large needles into hundreds of points in my body, day after day. I should have cried but I don?t think I did.

What does this have to do with the subject at hand? I don?t know. It?s background. I lived in New York City and I visited the World Trade Center. These are my thoughts as I try to remember what it felt like.

My father visited us several times while we lived there. My parents were still ?together,? just not living together because of various reasons. I didn?t really think too hard about that, since I?ve never really thought too hard about anything if I can help it.

One time, he took us to see the towers. If you?ve never been there before, imagine the physical manifestation of the word ?looming.? That?s what it was like standing before them and looking up. I didn?t know anything about them other than that they seemed to be immense and timeless, some construct that was quite old and would stand for long after I was dead. I knew back then I?d be dead eventually.

We went and stood in line in front of one of those industrial-size elevators they have for tourists to ride to the top in. It took awhile, but not terribly long, to get in, and I felt fairly safe being surrounded by all the large people around us. I didn?t notice the change in the floor number, only that I was being pulled towards the floor with a surprising force. It took around a minute to get to the end of the ride. The doors slid open and we suddenly found ourselves looking out. The windows were everywhere, exposing the skyline from a hundred stories up. I inched to the edge and looked down. People like the dots of an I, cars puttering along no larger than ants, and overall a sense of being far too high overwhelmed me.

?What if I should fall??

That?s what I thought. What if the tower crumbles? Will the foundation hold? Will I die looking down on the world today?

I guess I didn?t. I entertained nightmares for a few months after that, of standing in the top floor of a great skyscraper and having it fall down, with me inside. But then, what does this have to do with the subject at hand? I don?t know. When I think about what?s gone by, contemplating the image of a 747, which under some strange happenstance I might have been a passenger in, colliding violently, imbedding itself in a building I?ve stood in at a level where I?d be certainly dead from the fall, or from the smoke, I just think back. I remember the skyline, I remember the view. I remember the way it was because I?ve been there. I won?t dwell any more on the moment of impact, for millions of people the words have been said with enough depth of meaning and quavering of voice to eclipse whatever I might type. So I?ll remember the past and hope for the future.