Chrisonomicon

Thursday, September 13, 2001

When I was 14, I saw a man shot in the back of the head ten feet in front of me. The memory isn't fluid. That is, I don't remember the shot in slow motion, or him falling to the ground, or even the sound of the gun going off, but rather a series of discrete images in my mind. One minute he's standing there (between two cars, orange shirt, brown curly hair, mustache) and the next minute he's lying face down in a pool of blood.

I feel pressure build on my ear-drums. As if coming out of a tunnel, the silence around my head is slowly penetrated by a gradual increase in volume and my mother's scream suddenly rings full pitch in my ears. Her fingernails dig into my shoulder and I feel the weight of her body as she runs, pushing me away from the body and towards the car. The parking lot rushes in around us.

I remember being fully unemotional during the entire scene. Not shocked or scared, but simply devoid of feeling. I wasn't really sure what to make of it. Looking back at the crowd of people gathering and the body on the ground, I remember just watching as I was rushed away. It was the first time I had ever encountered death first-hand, although certainly not the last.

Many people are taking these days as an opportunity to talk about death. The plane crashes have opened a crater in the mind of the world that is slowly flooding with talk and horror and disbelief and celebration and ignorance and emotions of every kind. As much as I try to carry on, the topic is unavoidable. Even the attempt to ignore it is ? in an offhanded way ? acknowledging it at the same time.

I successfully avoided seeing any footage of people leaping from the World Trade Center. Every time they would show it, I would look away. It's not that I wanted to deny it happening, I just didn't want to see it happening. I had enough horror going on inside my head. Imagination tends to be worse than reality, but I can at least refute whatever preposterous conjurings my mind comes up with as only imagination, whereas the horror on television must be acknowledged.