I saw the towers fall. Or, I should say, I heard them fall. Since I am forever looking down, focused in only one direction, I can see little else but what my limited gaze allows. Every day I curse the sculptor who made me a businessman, directed me like an inhabitant of Plato’s cave to fix my attention on an open briefcase as if it were reality itself. I am regarded as little more than a thing to most people – an object with features to resemble those of many men.
I am, however, a reliable acquaintance for those exhausted souls who drudge past me on their lonely way to work each day. I may weather, but I never change and this immortality often lends comfort to those who have begun to see themselves age in my reflection. They stare and remember a time when life was not so grey. When joy was not so tempered by sorrow and regret. When men were more decent to one another. In short, they long for childhood once again.
We all have grayed since the days of nine-eleven. I, in the ashen shadow of the towers themselves and you, with a new-found understanding of vengeance and its remains. It permeates everything and makes even the most brilliant sky yellow along the edges.
The first plane to hit a tower arrived shortly after nine in the morning. Great clouds of smoke began to cloak the sky, blocking the sun from casting its light upon those of us below. The persistent and mournful cry of sirens echoed through the great corridors of buildings and streets, along with screams and whistles and horns, all blaring out as some kind of dissonant symphony.
The second plane only increased the sorrow along the avenues . And, for a time, I was witness to some of the most remarkable expressions of bravery and kindness, but these were enveloped by the gloom of burning ashes and the creak of twisting steel. I either saw or heard tell of a trillion different sacrifices that morning. There were angels dressed in black and yellow who wrestled with demons while ascending the upper rungs of hell. There were also blue Seraphims who floated amidst the white powdered ether, illuminating the way for those lost souls who were shrouded in the abyss. And the strangers helping strangers that they had earlier passed unnoticed on the train. It was mankind simultaneously engaged in his best, as well as his most ferocious, of hours.
Chaos reigned as human suffering became too much to bear that day. The morning turned too quickly into mourning when a volley of gruesome showers came falling from the sky, each brilliant and effervescent dewdrop extinguished by the sound of a sickening thud. Then the awful roar of destruction as both towers surrendered to gravity and released their hold upon the sky. Suddenly, I was baptized in a sea of ash and debris, crashing over me like a deafening wave.
And there I sat all day, immobile and immune to all of the misery around me, unable to do anything to resolve it or move to provide assistance in any way. A few rescuers came to check on me, but they had to double back once they saw me as an object once again. But I remember them.
I remember, too, the people who sat next to me and wept upon my bronze shoulder. I remember the little girl who placed roses at my feet and the fireman who shared with me some comforting stories from his childhood. I remember the people wandering the streets, lost – vaguely searching for something that had since vanished in the dust. I remember the resolve of men, hearts encased in iron, who labored through the rubble in vain hope of finding life among the ruins of Metropolis. I remember the night sky, artificially illuminated by spotlight for weeks afterwards. I remember the candles they placed upon my lap, each a hopeful prayer to a god somewhere that souls might burn immortal. And slowly, too, I remember things returning to normalcy and men calling for vengeance once again.
No doubt I will be the only survivor who remains to witness a new century. By then, I’m sure, this all will be a distant memory and I alone will carry the burden of recollection. I serve as a further reminder, as if man had not enough, that from destruction arises an almost divine understanding, a familiarity with the fragility of all things. Yet, will it be enough to cause a man to step lightly upon the earth?; or to temper his passion for revenge?; or to begin kissing his children goodbye every morning? Alas, I have no tongue to say. I see, hear, and am silent.