introspective periscope : peeking inside since Y2K ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- into words five days later - fifteenth of september, 2001 "and the birds flew around like the whole world was ending."~ani difranco i haven't been able to get my thoughts in control. they've been mulling about and fast and random and looping and anxious and all sorts of lovely adjectives and i can't seem to get them into anything like linear order. i've been so overwhelmed. i never thought i'd be such a talk radio listener. i always thought those shows were blandish and rather dull. now, i can hardly go without my radio updating me about the state of the union. and now that they've got me hooked and living for the bottom of the hour...for the update...for the news that so far, nothing is goin' down and yes, the planes are still in the air, suspended on the invisably thin wires....that we haven't killed some more humans going about their days.... now that they've got me hooked, my stomach knots and lurches. it feels like i'm being bombarded with ignorance and ethnocentricism at its finest. the only word that comes to mind is overwhelmed. but as the days are going by, they're slipping back into regularly scheduled programming and i'm listening to more NPR again and i'm remembering my cds. still, i dread turning on that radio in the morning. i dread the news that i know will come....in time. i'm forever learning patience. anyway. its taken me a few days to get it out, but the words have been there all along. it almost seems outdated like the news footage....they're covering the local news again. still....i have to get this out. someone...somewhere...has to understand... i'm finally able to find some words. Finally Came it was one of those mornings that makes you want to be awake- it was such a sunny morning- we had the radio tuned to the oldies station, the 3WS live broadcast, cuz we were stuck at work but we'd all driven past the brand new Krispy Kreme; we all watched the countdown numbers fall away til there were no days left to wait: the day had finally come.
yes, we'd all driven past the krispy kreme and seen the masses of citizens of our yuppified township weaving impatient circles around the mall parking lot, people waiting hours on grand opening day for a few hot donuts in a white box with green polka dots- and i couldn't help wondering at the breed of person that had that kind of time on a tuesday morning to wait for a donut.
so we worked and listened, opening our own store that we had no way of knowing would see few customers yes, we listened to the oldies station and sang along with songs we knew and listened to the krispy kreme trivia. shake machine, check. (they are glazed on a conveyer belt.) meat slicer, check. (glazed and confused.) cookies baked? (green neon sign) salads prepared? (hot ones now.) check. and as i stood there, checking off the things on my checklist, the radio stopped singing old songs to us. as i stood there, the fractured black box that was supposed to be replaced come football season had other things to tell us.
the djs changed into syndicated echo box voices and the songs stopped playing for the day. we all stood caught off guard, as the krispy kreme trivia stopped and the news came.
one plane. maybe it was an accident? someone call the fire department! two planes? on purpose? this can't be. disbelief. three planes. The pentagon is burning, too. Where is my mother? I think she's in Washington, today- fuck-Jim- thats right across the river- god, can I call her at her office- just to be sure? no, no- i'm fine, really- yes, i can keep working- what else is there to do? they're grounding all the birds but there are some missing- how do you lose a Boeing 757? one last- finally found- crashed down in a cornfield- here in pennsylvania.
we listened to the voices screaming across the waves and i checked to see if someone had perhaps changed the channel to some station with a sadistic format, but had all been so compliant with the early morning dj- none of us had touched that dial.
and we didn't have too many customers and i don't blame anyone for not wanting to eat as the five point symbol of saftey burned and the Twin Towers crumbled and the topography of my state changed, dented with the crater of a crash- "they just fell out of the sky."
and when my shift was over, i was tired and downtrodden and afraid, afraid of the distance between us, afraid for my brother who is nineteen, afraid to put too much space between me and a radio. i went home, then, to see what the television could offer, only to be disgusted and sickened... reality even more vivid than what my imagination could conjur- yes, this is real. yes. this. is. real. in disbelief, i clicked the television back into silence and sat with my thoughts a bit.
and its sort of sickly amusing to me the path on which my thoughts did venture: not grieving for those lost in the "dust clouds and twisted steel" and not so much fear for what might come next. no, my thoughts wandered down a random path to donuts and grand openings, to snaking traffic and white boxes with green polka dots.
see- when i drove home with my mother after my shift was over, we passed that krispy kreme and the lines were no shorter than eight hours earlier. even terrorism didn't seem to have too much affect on that special breed of human, seemingly short of humanity. instead, it gave them something to talk about while they waited for their hot glazed donuts in the white box with the green polka dots.
and five days later, it's these same sugarfixed creatures that are hanging fad american flags outside their homes and wearing their trademark trendy Old Navy shirts with the screen printed emblem on their chests, crying for the demise of other innocent lives- "kill the muslims. kill. anyone. blame. someone." five days later, they are seeking revenge and sitting in front of televisions wondering when the war will start and eating donuts that come in white boxes with green polka dots while i watch the sky cautiously just in case another plane decides to take the plunge. yes, its these same creatures who refuse to see past their own comfortable conveniences that are making me lose sleep- and maybe its all just as well because i'm just one person... i can't educate them all. yes, they're keeping me awake at night with their calls to level other countries "flat like parking lots" to "kill those towel heads" and to "show them they can't do this to *us*"... they're keeping me awake and the only good i can see coming from my lack of sleep is that i just might beat them to the front of the line to get my own hot donuts... if only i could just turn off the radio. and nobody wanted to admit that all along, it could have just as easily been us. all along, nobody thought it was going to happen and that sunny morning, they stood in line and listened to oldies. the day had finally come. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- .what came before. - .what happened next. a diamond at the bottom of the drain - 20 october 2017 |
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