Cartman
just made by the Presbyterian Church
Member # 256
posted
It's been a day and a half since... since I was stabbed through the heart. Repeatedly. Some acquaintances of mine, along with perhaps as much as 50,000!!! other innocent human beings, were wiped off the face of the Earth in the most senseless, despicable inhuman act of terrorism I have ever witnessed. I thought I had seen it all: carbombings, suicide assaults, planecrashes, mass slaughterings, but this... this is of such gigantic proportions it dwarfs everything. Nothing compares! It brings new meaning, a new definition to human suffering and violence. The experiences of that black day, 11-09-2001, will haunt me forever. Images burning permanently in my eyes, sounds eternally echoing in my ears. The recorded cellphone conversation, "we're going to die up here goddammit!"; the planes ploughing into the Twin Towers, the poor soul waving a piece of clothing out of a window, people jumping to their deaths moments before the majestic towers collapsed... and then the aftermath of the disaster. I can't put this into perspective, my brain is struggling to comprehend these horrific events. I feel so fucking goddamned utterly power- and useless, I can't help out on anything while there might still be people alive for whom every second counts! Words fail me here, I'm trying to reproduce my stream of consciousness but there are simply no linguistical equivalents to express what I am feeling right now. The mental scars I have sustained are deep, very deep. And they won't heal. Each time I close my eyes, it comes flashing by. Somebody wake me up from this nightmare!
Ich bin ein New Yorker. Thank you for reading this if you have made it this far down. My sincere and utmost condolences to all who have lost a friend, or a family member. I am convinced we will pull through this. We have to. Otherwise the Ali Motterfuckialies will have already won. Let us also begin the process of rebuilding our lives, and the WTC. We should construct the largest and strongest building the world has ever seen. An act of defiance, a symbol of all the civilised West stands for. Show that terrorism won't bring a nation to its knees, but in fact strengthen it. Let's make damn sure that some good comes out of this in the end!
[ September 12, 2001: Message edited by: My Publically Displayed Name ]
-------------------- ".mirrorS arE morE fuN thaN televisioN" - TEH PNIK FLAMIGNO
Registered: Nov 1999
| IP: Logged
posted
I wish to hell I had something inspirational or, hell, even comforting to say right now. However, I don't. I jumped out of sleep three times last night because I heard the roar of jet engines. It was only the roar of th 147th Fighter Wing patroling Houston and the Gulf Coast region. I went to work today, a 15-story tall skyscraper just outside of downtown. I actually felt a bit of terror and pondered just getting back into my car and going back home to call in sick. In the end, I did go in and get to work. All of us have been touched deeply by this. All of us have been angered deeply by this.
The images of what happened yesterday will never be forgotten. I'll never forget the images of large Boeing 767's sailing into the facades of the World Trade Center's Twin Towers and vaporizing on impact. Watching the video of the fireballs and smoke plumes made me think that I was watching a Hollywood summer blockbuster. It still takes me a minute to remember that the fireballs were the death knells for hundreds of people. Watching the Pentagon's damaged section collapse, the Twin Towers collapse, and the wreckage of the fourth airplane, it's still hard to contemplate that thousands of innocent souls that are no longer with us.
In the end, we can only grow from this tragedy and remember those we've lost. One World Trade Center is completely gone. Two World Trade Center is completely gone. Seven World Trade Center is completely gone. Three World Trade Center is barely hanging on. One Liberty Plaza is partial collapsed. The Pentagon has sustained a good deal of damage. Four large passenger jetliners are gone. Thousands of innocent people, our friends, our family, our countrymen and women, and heroic rescue workers are gone. However, they will never be forgotten. The perpetrators will be found and will be punished, whether that punishment comes in this life or the next. All's that really helping me through this is the hope that the innocent souls that left us yesterday have moved onto the higher existence spoken of by their faith.
-------------------- The philosopher's stone. Those who possess it are no longer bound by the laws of equivalent exchange in alchemy. They gain without sacrifice and create without equal exchange. We searched for it, and we found it.
OnToMars
Now on to the making of films!
Member # 621
posted
Odd that you were spooked by the sounds of airplanes. Here, its rather unsettling to see the airport across the way and not see one moving plane. Not a Cessna, not a Leerjet, not a 727, nothing. Where usually you'll see at least three planes landing and taking off walking between class, its now completely devoid of activity. And there are at least three planes on the other side of the airport that are just sitting out there, forced to land here yesterday morning when the FAA ordered all planes to land at the nearest non-major airport.
Sometimes I wonder what would've happened had a plane in this area been hijacked (perhaps headed for KSC) when that order was given and the terrorists would've just decided to kamikaze something close to the airport or the airport itself.
Crazy shit.
-------------------- If God didn't want us to fly, he wouldn't have given us Bernoulli's Principle.
posted
Okay. I don't believe in this stuff, but I've been told I ought to mention it.
The night before the disaster, I woke up early in the morning because I'd been having one of a class of dreams I have fairly often, that something - some creature - is in the bed. My fianc�e says I sat bolt upright so she woke up too. We then lay there cuddling for a while, when I noticed a strange vibration that came from I don't know where. She didn't notice it.
Then a sound started building. It was a muted roar that grew and grew, becoming almost deafening. It was like a jet engine, but with what sounded like screams mixed in. I though a jet was about to crash (we're in the flight paths for London's Stanstead and City airports). I just hoped they were heading for the large area of waste ground to the East. Then it just faded away. Again, she didn't hear it. She did say, in relation to the vibrations, that we get earth tremors in that area. I then went back to sleep.
So there you have it. A dream? A premonition? I don't know. Never encountered such a phenomenon before. I've been thinking about it a lot these past two days, and I guess I need an outlet for it too.
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